The Second Puppet, Yaya

On the way to the Tenshu Tower, Yayoi could not help rubbing his waist.

It had only been nearly a year, yet he had never expected Kicho to become so "brutal."

Kicho was only twenty this year. In another ten years...

Yayoi suddenly felt that training in Taijutsu had been the right choice.

"Lord Yayoi, is your body all right?"

Seemingly noticing that something was off with Yayoi's condition, Irori asked with concern as she brewed tea.

"It's nothing serious. I'll be fine after resting for a bit."

Yayoi silently blamed himself for not knowing moderation. He and Kicho had gotten far too wild last night; he could not fool around like that next time.

Still, Kicho had been so alluringly uninhibited last night. If he had not taken the opportunity, he would have been rather unromantic.

"Here, Lord Yayoi."

Irori's voice sounded beside his ear. Yayoi looked at the silver-haired girl in a kimono holding out the tea, gently accepted it, and took a small sip. The flavor lingered pleasantly.

"Irori, your craftsmanship is as good as ever."

Yayoi praised her.

Unlike Kicho, Aoi, and Rinko, the three women who always wrung him dry, Irori only knew how to care for him.

Soon, he set down the teacup and began working.

Sitting before his desk, Yayoi looked at the pile of documents still awaiting processing. Not only was he not impatient, but he was full of energy and fighting spirit.

Compared to Kicho's frenzied exploitation of him last night, this workload was practically nothing.

After processing the documents, Yayoi picked up the intelligence reports sent over by the Intelligence Division. Irori had already organized them, making them far easier for him to read.

First was the international situation, which remained the same as before.

Konoha stood as steady as a mountain, while the various countries had likewise not completely lowered their guard against the Land of Fire and Konoha.

In Yayoi's view, as long as no one provoked Hashirama Senju or targeted his weak points, that man was harmless.

As long as he remained harmless, whatever voices existed within Konoha had no significance worth paying attention to.

After Madara made those harsh threats, he had still not taken his next step. That was entirely unlike his character and undoubtedly confirmed Yayoi's thoughts.

As Hokage, Hashirama must have forcefully suppressed Madara's next move afterward.

In other words, Hokage Hashirama had invisibly defused a Shinobi World War.

Was this the worth of the God of Shinobi?

Yayoi marveled inwardly.

The best way to judge a person's character was to see what they did.

This God of Shinobi truly held compassion in his heart. He was a moral exemplar of this era.

The intelligence reports that followed did not particularly concern Yayoi. They were all trivial matters that his subordinates would naturally handle. He only needed to inspect the results afterward; there was no need for him to do everything personally.

After dealing with the Tenshu Tower's affairs, Yayoi brought Irori to the underground level.

Ninja and samurai guarded the place around the clock in shifts, while large numbers of Ghost Puppets floated and patrolled, protecting the area without a single gap.

Combined with the mechanisms and traps Yayoi had spent tremendous effort and time designing, even a ninja of his level would have only one path to death if trapped inside.

Yayoi first inspected Zero, the main brain controlling the Ghost Puppets' movements.

The iron brain sat inside a transparent glass cover, immersed in solution. As usual, it released bubbles, seeming like a living creature with its own consciousness.

"It's still running as steadily as before. Before long, I can upgrade it a little, add some intelligence, and let it control the puppets more efficiently while expanding their range of activity."

Yayoi inspected every component of the iron brain, Zero. In terms of its overall design, this brain puppet was primarily made of steel and Chakra Metal, making it almost entirely a mechanical creation. It was fundamentally different from a lifeform such as Irori.

As a result, upgrading it was much more convenient than upgrading Irori. He only needed to further activate the Chakra within its core, then replace it with superior Chakra Metal or Chakra Crystal.

After completing the inspection, Yayoi and Irori arrived at the sealed space where the second Puppet Lifeform was being cultivated.

Other than their footsteps, there was almost no other sound here.

Neither light nor the sound of wind from outside could reach this place.

Though it was underground, the space was not small at all. Even a large summoned beast could roll around to its heart's content here.

Inside the transparent cylindrical cultivation tank, centered around a Chakra Crystal Core, a fair-skinned baby girl had already begun to develop. Her limbs had visibly grown as well.

She curled her tiny body and limbs together, her eyes tightly shut as she quietly floated in the solution, exhaling bubbles that drifted upward.

The solution had originally been dark green, but its color had now faded somewhat.

Clearly, much of the energy substance within it had already been absorbed by the baby girl.

"It's only been a while, yet Yaya has already grown to this extent. She should be able to come out around March or April next year, right?"

Standing outside the cylindrical cultivation tank, Irori looked through the glass at the fair-skinned baby girl curled up and floating in the solution, her expression filled with anticipation.

After all, this was the family member she had always longed for.

Though she resembled a human, Irori had always understood that she was not one.

Her essence leaned closer to that of the Tailed Beasts, yet she was also different from them.

Thus, she was an independent being who was neither human nor Tailed Beast. At times, this uniqueness made her feel lonely.

But she no longer needed to worry about that. Next year, she would gain a younger sister whose essence was the same as her own.

After Yayoi's consideration, this younger sister's name had also been officially decided.

Her name was Yaya.

She possessed physical traits stronger than Irori's and was a born Taijutsu specialist.

Though she was not skilled at wide-range attacks, she could compress destructive power into a single point for concentrated destruction.

As if she had heard Irori's murmur, the fair-skinned baby girl in the solution instinctively twitched her eyelids. The bubbles escaping from her mouth also became more rapid.

"Lord Yayoi, Yaya is responding to me!"

A rare expression of happiness appeared on Irori's face. She was clearly delighted by her younger sister's response.

"Yes, I saw it. It seems her body has already developed instinctive judgment and can produce a bloodline resonance with family."

Yayoi was not surprised.

Although her intelligence and capacity for thought had not yet been activated, Yaya's body was already no different from that of a true lifeform. Her instincts were even stronger than a human's.

Like Irori, Yayoi was immensely looking forward to Yaya's growth.

In his design, Irori's abilities leaned toward large-scale destruction and powerful suppression and sealing properties.

That was why, when facing Madara's Susanoo, she could only focus on sealing and suppression and could not break through it.

But the Yaya who would be born next was different. She was a true attacker.

If she had been there when he fought Madara's Shadow Clone, then perhaps he would not have needed Mu. He might have had a way to threaten Madara's third-stage Susanoo.

Of course, that was only speculation.

He could not predict the upper limit of Madara's third-stage Susanoo.

Likewise, the upper limit of Yaya's offensive abilities, as the second Puppet Lifeform he had created, could not be assessed without actual combat.

By the same token, like Irori, Yaya would also be someone he could trust.

Though he now had blood-related heirs, when it came to trust... without question, these Puppet Lifeforms he had personally created might be the ones he truly trusted.

It was not that he did not cherish his wives and children. Whether it was Kicho, Aoi, Rinko, or even the child who had just been born, he sincerely loved and protected them.

It was simply that his connection with these Puppet Lifeforms transcended every law defined by the world.

Just as Irori had said, they were his lovers, guards, servants... the light of his life, the fire of his soul. They were everything, they were one, they were the world.

"Your Chakra... is truly terrifying."

From the darkness deep within the sealed space came a leisurely voice tinged with boredom and scrutiny. It belonged to the Seven-Tails, the enormous beetle-like creature imprisoned within an iron cage.

Even from far away, its voice remained clear.

Yayoi came back from his thoughts and turned slightly toward the Seven-Tails, not understanding why it said that.

"Your Chakra does not feel like energy to me. It feels more like a living lifeform... These puppets you created should not have been able to exist, whether in theory or in practice..."

Under Irori's hostile, unfriendly gaze, the Seven-Tails continued speaking.

Could this brat be the Child of Prophecy the old man of the Six Paths spoke of?

The Seven-Tails' thoughts drifted back to that ancient era shortly after its birth.

The Sage of Six Paths, who had created the nine Tailed Beasts, the Ninja World's first Jinchūriki, and the legendary founder of order and peace, the master of Ninshū.

When he first created the Tailed Beasts, he had left them with the legend of the "Child of Prophecy"—

A blue-eyed youth who would call the names of the nine beasts and play with them.

That blue-eyed youth would bring new tranquility and peace to the ninja world...

The Seven-Tails withdrew its thoughts and looked at Yayoi again, immediately dismissing that unrealistic notion.

After all, this man had black hair and black eyes, and he was not a youth.

"It's a little late to say this now, but your Chakra should recover to around seventy percent by next year, right?"

Yayoi walked into the darkness. Only faint light illuminated the cage here as he looked at the Seven-Tails, whose body had grown considerably larger again.

The number of chains and talismans covering its body had increased once more, and their positions were even more remote, as though it had been completely shoved into a corner and deprived of even light.

The only source of illumination was the small amount of glowing scale dust that fell from its wings.

The Seven-Tails could now only judge who had arrived by their footsteps.

And it was not difficult to guess, since there were only a handful of people who could come to this place.

As the other party came more often, the Seven-Tails had grown familiar enough to identify people by sound.

"By my calculations, I should recover to seventy percent by then..."

The Seven-Tails also estimated the speed of its recovery.

If its Chakra had merely been absorbed, it would actually have recovered to its peak state long ago.

But the method Yayoi used to take its Chakra while creating Puppet Lifeforms was different. It robbed it of something more fundamental, causing its Chakra to recover very slowly.

"That's good. As agreed, when the time comes, I'll form a summoning contract with you and release you."

Yayoi took out a specially made white talisman. A black seven-pointed star formation was drawn upon it, surrounded by densely packed black incantations.

The talisman bore the Sealing Art: Seven-Star Seal.

He pressed the talisman onto the Seven-Tails' horn. As long as the Seven-Tails' Chakra went berserk, he would immediately activate the Sealing Jutsu on it and suppress the Seven-Tails' Chakra at once.

Together with the thick chains wrapped around the Seven-Tails and the many other sealing talismans, it was enough to keep the Seven-Tails pinned here, unable to move.

Even though the Seven-Tails was not at its peak, he would strangle every possible accident in the cradle and give it no opportunity to exploit.

Sure enough, he isn't a pacifist either...

The Seven-Tails sensed the Sealing Talisman attached to the horn on its forehead and complained inwardly.

It was already this weak, yet he still guarded against it so tightly, deliberately using such high-level sealing talismans and Sealing Jutsu against it without leaving even the slightest chance...

In all its years of life, it had never seen a ninja this cautious.

This man was simply far too prudent!

(Irori and Yaya's appearances both came from the anime Unbreakable Machine-Doll. They are respectively the eldest and second sisters of the Snow Moon Flower Doll Sisters.

The protagonist's third Puppet Lifeform will be the youngest sister of the Snow Moon Flower Doll Sisters—Komurasaki. She will be a relatively pure support-type doll, but her abilities will be heavily modified to better fit the Ninja World's native power system.

I'll place the character images of the Snow Moon Flower Doll Sisters at the end of the chapter.)