Seeing the Village Kage Wagging His Tail and Begging for Mercy from Another Country's Envoy Delegation

Shisui Uchiha did not have many injuries on him, and his own strength had already recovered, so Hiruzen Sarutobi did not continue waiting and directly asked about his previous experiences.

Before going missing, Shisui Uchiha had been executing a mission involving Amegakure, which was why they had dispatched him.

Yet in the end, the mission was completed, but the person had not returned.

Hearing Hiruzen Sarutobi's inquiry, Shisui Uchiha's gaze was somewhat dazed, as if he were recalling that past experience once more, but in reality, it was simply because he did not know how to explain it.

This mission had been very smooth at the beginning, but right after it was completed, the client had suddenly turned into someone completely different.

Shisui Uchiha had sensed danger at the time and had just wanted to make a move when someone ambushed him from behind. He knew nothing else until he woke up a short while ago.

Basically, no intelligence was obtained from Shisui Uchiha here.

However, Uchiha Ensei keenly discovered that Shisui Uchiha's other eye had already lost the vast majority of its pupillary power.

Secretly keeping this crucial detail in mind, Uchiha Ensei began to analyze the ins and outs of the matter.

"It looks like you were probably ambushed by Black Zetsu."

"I mentioned before that Madara Uchiha awakened the Rinnegan..."

Hearing the name Rinnegan, Hiruzen Sarutobi could not help but blurt out, "Rinnegan? Could you be speaking of the legendary eyes of the Sage of Six Paths?"

Uchiha Ensei was suddenly interrupted, but he did not mind at all. Instead, he spoke with a meaningful tone to supplement his point, "Did I not mention it to you before? It seems I must not have..."

"Never mind. Sometimes, when you see too much of the future, it always gets mixed up with reality."

"This can also be considered a bit of a cost for my ability."

"To continue, after Madara Uchiha awakened the Rinnegan, he summoned the Demonic Statue of the Outer Path from the moon. Using the flesh and blood bitten off from the First, Hashirama Senju, along with the Demonic Statue of the Outer Path, he cultivated some White Zetsu."

"As for Black Zetsu, Madara Uchiha created it using Yin–Yang Release right before he died."

"The legend goes that the Sage of Six Paths used Yin–Yang Release to create the nine Tailed Beasts, so the two should be fairly similar."

"Black Zetsu's combat capability is not strong, but if it ambushes someone, it is capable of seizing a person's body in an instant."

"However, it rarely does this under normal circumstances, so there should be some sort of limitation on its power."

"..."

Uchiha Ensei spoke with a mixture of truth and falsehoods. Aside from the matter of Kaguya Otsutsuki, everything else was basically the truth.

Right now, he had to act as though he was completely unaware of Black Zetsu's true origins; otherwise, that fellow Black Zetsu might just pull off something major against him.

And an even worse development would be Black Zetsu hiding away until he himself died of old age.

Taking advantage of the opportunity with Shimura Danzō, Uchiha Ensei asked Hiruzen Sarutobi for the Book of Seals to read.

Uchiha Ensei had originally thought he would be refused, but for reasons unknown to Hiruzen Sarutobi, the man had actually agreed.

There was likely some sort of scheme hidden within this.

However, Uchiha Ensei did not care. Even if the forbidden techniques in the Book of Seals had been tampered with, his talent should allow him to spot a thing or two.

After memorizing the Flying Thunder God Technique and Impure World Reincarnation, Uchiha Ensei returned the Book of Seals.

Yet when returning the book, Hiruzen Sarutobi mentioned that in a period of time, Kumogakure would send people to sign a treaty of alliance with Konoha, and they needed to borrow people from the Uchiha Clan to maintain order.

Hearing the name of Kumogakure and connecting it with the current time, Uchiha Ensei immediately thought of a rather important node in the plot.

The kidnapping incident of Hinata Hyuga.

In the original plot, during the event where Hinata Hyuga was kidnapped by the Cloud Envoy Delegation, the only loss was the scapegoat Hizashi Hyuga, while the weakness of Hiruzen Sarutobi was also heavily portrayed.

"No problem. I'll arrange for people to patrol when the time comes."

"Also, give me a headband. I've been idle lately, so I'll help you solve a small trouble."

Uchiha Ensei agreed quite readily, but it made Hiruzen Sarutobi hesitate somewhat.

Hesitating for a long time, Hiruzen Sarutobi began to voice the doubts in his heart.

"Ensei... Have you seen some of the future again?"

Hiruzen Sarutobi asked this question with considerable internal conflict. In truth, he had already roughly guessed some of it, but he was simply rather reluctant to confirm it.

Uchiha Ensei gave him a sideways glance and spoke:

"That's right. I saw a village Kage wagging his tail and begging for mercy from another country's envoy delegation, and in the end, even offering up the corpse of the younger brother of the village's second-greatest clan head to serve as a scapegoat!"

"If I were to commit such a spineless act, I probably wouldn't have the face to keep living."

Listening to Uchiha Ensei's unvarnished mockery, Hiruzen Sarutobi's expression turned very ugly.

The ugliness of his expression was not because he was angry at Uchiha Ensei's words, but rather because he was furious that he might actually turn into that exact kind of person.

Although Uchiha Ensei spoke very vaguely, the "other country" clearly pointed directly at Kumogakure, and the "younger brother of the second-greatest clan head"...

In Konoha, apart from the Hyuga Clan, where else was there another clan head with a younger brother who could serve as a scapegoat?

Clearly, Kumogakure's signing of this alliance treaty was fake, while plotting for the Kekkei Genkai of the Hyuga Clan was the real truth.

What made Hiruzen Sarutobi even more furious was that if signs of potentially going to war with Kumogakure truly arose, he really might have compromised for the sake of peace.

"Ensei, I leave this matter to you. Make sure that situation never appears!"

In Hiruzen Sarutobi's words, a hint of entreaty was revealed.

Uchiha Ensei, however, ignored him and turned to leave the Hokage's Office.

Right on cue, the project to clone the Byakugan could proceed to the next step.

Hinata Hyuga's cells should be somewhat purer; at that time, he could distinguish the differences between the two and then further optimize them.

If luck was on his side, he might just be able to concoct a few pairs of Tenseigan.

Although judging by their manifestations, the power of the Tenseigan seemed inferior to the Rinnegan, the two should still be considered existences of the same tier, so they would probably be somewhat useful.

Having completed the preparations for performing another Byakugan cloning, Uchiha Ensei began studying Impure World Reincarnation.

This kind of ninjutsu was not too difficult for Uchiha Ensei. Anyway, he had no intention of improving it; being able to use it to the extent that Tobirama Senju did would be enough.

Confirming that he had basically mastered it, Uchiha Ensei consumed two death row inmates to prove that he had mastered this forbidden technique, and then began making a different set of attempts.

He used the clones inside the Impure World Reincarnation laboratory to determine the boundary between soul and physical body.

After trying seven or eight times in a row, Uchiha Ensei arrived at his final conclusion.

First, White Zetsu lacked souls—or rather, their souls no longer existed, so naturally they could not be summoned via Impure World Reincarnation.

Next came the clones. Those cloned by himself, no matter the level of the clone, as long as they possessed a brain, they possessed a soul.

However, the quality of this kind of soul was very low, basically no different from worms and insects. The ones he cloned specifically to serve as spare bodies were much the same.

As for those artificial humans, their souls were relatively complete, somewhat approximating the state of beasts.

The clones lacking true souls could be considered good news, after all.

In the ninja world, the only thing recorded as being able to shape life seemed to be Yin–Yang Release.

Finally came those Byakugan that he had cloned individually. Uchiha Ensei attempted Impure World Reincarnation on them, and the result was naturally a failure.

It seemed that cloning the Mangekyo required more than just the eyes; some other components were needed as well.