The Second Puppet Name 'Yaya'

On the way to Tenshu Tower, Yayoi couldn't help pressing his lower back.

It had only been a year or so, and he didn't expect Kicho to become so brutal.

Kicho was only twenty years old, so after another ten years...

Yayoi suddenly felt that exercising his taijutsu was the right decision.

"Lord Yayoi, is your body alright?"

Seeming to sense that Yayoi's body was a bit unusual, Irori brewed tea while asking with concern.

"It's nothing serious, just give me a moment to recover."

Yayoi also secretly blamed himself for not knowing when to stop. He had played too wildly with Kicho last night, and he couldn't act so recklessly next time.

Yet Kicho had been so enchantingly open last night that for him not to pluck that flower would have showed a lack of romantic sensibility.

"Here you go, Lord Yayoi."

Hearing Irori's voice by his ear, Yayoi looked at the silver-haired girl in a kimono holding the cup of tea, gently took it, and took a small sip. The aftertaste was endless.

"Irori, your skills are still as good as ever."

Yayoi offered a word of praise.

Unlike Kicho, Aoi, and Rinko, three women who always squeezed him dry, Irori only ever felt heart-ache for him.

Soon, he put down his teacup and set to work.

Sitting at his desk, Yayoi looked at the pile of official documents still waiting to be processed, but he felt not a shred of impatience; instead, he was spirited and full of fighting spirit.

Compared to Kicho's crazy squeezing of him last night, this little workload was nothing at all.

After finishing the official documents, Yayoi next picked up the intelligence files delivered by the Intelligence Division, which had already been sorted through in advance by Irori so that he could read them more conveniently.

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

Konoha stood immovable as a mountain, and the various nations likewise still hadn't completely let down their guard against the Land of Fire and Konoha.

In Yayoi's view, as long as no one ruffled Hashirama Senju's feathers or targeted his soft spots, this man was harmless.

As long as he was a harmless presence, then regardless of what voices existed within Konoha, there was no point in paying attention to them.

After Madara released his harsh threats, he still delayed in launching his next move, which didn't suit his personality at all, and this undoubtedly confirmed Yayoi's thoughts.

As Hokage, Hashirama had inevitably suppressed Madara's next move with a firm attitude after that.

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

Is this the value of the God of Shinobi?

Yayoi felt endless emotion in his heart.

The best way to judge a person's character was to look at what that person did.

This God of Shinobi was truly merciful and could be called the moral model of this era.

The intelligence he browsed through next didn't hold any special interest for him; they were all trivial, insignificant matters that his subordinates would naturally handle well, at which point he could just go inspect them without needing to do everything personally.

Having finished the affairs of Tenshu Tower, Yayoi brought Irori down to the underground spatial layer.

Ninjas and samurai patrolled in shifts twenty-four hours a day, alongside a large number of ghost puppets floating and wandering, protecting this place tightly with not a single leak.

Coupled with the mechanisms and traps Yayoi had designed with a great deal of painstaking effort and time, even a ninja of his same rank who broke in would be left with only a dead end once surrounded inside.

Yayoi first went to check on the main brain controlling the actions of the ghost puppets—Zero.

The brain made of steel was placed inside a transparent glass cover filled with soaking solution, and this steel brain bubbled away just like always, as if it were a living creature with its own consciousness.

"It's still running as stably as before. Before long, we can upgrade it slightly to add some intelligence, making it more efficient at controlling puppets and expanding the puppets' active range."

Yayoi inspected the various components of the steel brain Zero. In terms of overall design, this brain puppet was primarily made of steel and Chakra Metal, making it almost a purely mechanical creation that possessed a fundamental difference from a lifeform like Irori.

Therefore, wanting to upgrade it was also much simpler than with Irori. He only needed to further vitalize the chakra within the core and replace it with better Chakra Metal or Chakra Crystals.

After the inspection, Yayoi and Irori came to the sealed space where the second puppet lifeform was being cultivated.

Aside from the sound of their two pairs of footsteps, almost no other noise could be heard here.

The outside light or the sound of the wind could not reach this place.

Although located underground, the space was not small at all; even a large summoning beast could rollick and roll freely in a place like this.

Inside the transparent cylindrical culture tank, with a Chakra Crystal Core as the center, a baby girl with fair skin had already extended outward, and her human limbs had also distinctly grown out.

She curled her tiny body and limbs, her eyes tightly closed, lingering quietly just like that in the solution while blowing bubbles from her mouth that floated upward.

The original solution had been a deep green, but the color of the solution now had faded somewhat.

Clearly, the energetic substance within it had already been absorbed quite a bit by this baby girl.

"Haven't seen her in a while, and Yaya has actually grown to this extent. She should be able to come out around March or April of next year, right?"

Standing outside the cylindrical culture tank, Irori looked through the glass at the fair baby girl with curled body and limbs floating in the solution, a look of anticipation appearing on her face.

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

Though she approximated a human, Irori always understood that she was not human.

Her essence tended toward the Tailed Beasts, yet she was equally distinct from them.

Thus, she was an independent individual, neither human nor Tailed Beast, and occasionally felt lonely due to this peculiarity.

Now, however, she no longer needed to worry about such things, for next year she would gain a younger sister of the exact same essence.

As for this younger sister's name, after careful consideration by Yayoi, it was officially decided.

Her name was Yaya.

Possessing physical traits superior to her own, she was a natural taijutsu expert.

Though not skilled in large-scale attacks, she could compress her destructive power down to a single point for concentrated devastation.

Seeming to hear Irori's soft murmuring, the fair-skinned baby girl suspended in the nutrient solution twitched her eyelids instinctively, and the sound of bubbles escaping her mouth grew increasingly hurried.

"Lord Yayoi, Yaya is responding to me!"

A rare expression of joy appeared on Irori's face, clearly gladdened by her sister's response.

"Yes, I see. It seems her body has already developed a primal judgment, producing a bloodline resonance with her kin."

Yayoi was unsurprised by this.

Though she had yet to activate her intellect and cognitive abilities, Yaya's body was already indistinguishable from a true living being, and her instinctive judgment was even stronger than that of a human.

Like Irori, Yayoi looked forward to Yaya's growth with immense anticipation.

In his design, Irori's capacity leaned toward massive destruction, coupled with powerful suppression and sealing properties.

Therefore, when facing Madara's Susanoo, she could only rely on sealing and suppression, unable to shatter it.

However, the Yaya about to be born was different; she was a true offensive striker.

If she had also been present during his clash with Madara's Shadow Clone, perhaps without needing Mu, he might have had a way to threaten Madara's third-stage Susanoo.

Of course, all of this was mere speculation.

The strength of Madara's third-stage Susanoo defied his ability to predict an upper limit.

As for Yaya, the second Puppet Lifeform he created, her offensive capabilities similarly could not be evaluated without actual combat.

By the same token, like Irori, Yaya would also become a presence he could deeply trust.

Though he now had blood heirs, if it came down to trust... without a doubt, these Puppet Lifeforms he had crafted with his own hands were perhaps the ones he truly trusted above all.

It was not that he failed to cherish his wife and children; whether Kicho, Aoi, Rinko, or his newly born child, he loved and protected them all with sincere devotion.

It was simply that the bond between these Puppet Lifeforms and himself transcended every rule defined by mortal society.

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

"Your chakra... really is terrifying."

Boredom tinged with a hint of scrutiny, the deep darkness of the enclosed space harbored a massive beetle-like creature imprisoned in an iron cage—the Seven-Tails, its voice ringing out faintly.

Even separated by a great distance, its voice remained clear.

Yayoi snapped out of his thoughts, turning his head slightly toward the Seven-Tails' location, not understanding why the creature spoke thus.

"Your chakra gives me the feeling not of energy, but of some living lifeform... The puppets you manufacture, regardless of theory or practice, should never have been born at all..."

Amidst Irori's hostile and unkind gaze, the Seven-Tails' voice continued to echo.

Could this brat be the child of prophecy spoken of by the old Sage?

The Seven-Tails' thoughts inevitably drifted back to that ancient era when it had just been born.

That creator of the nine Tailed Beasts, the Ninja World's very first Jinchūriki, the legendary master of Ninshū who forged order and tranquility—the Sage of Six Paths.

At the very dawn of creating them, the Tailed Beasts, he had left behind a prophecy concerning them—the legend of the child of prophecy.

A green-eyed youth who would call upon the names of the nine beasts and play amongst them.

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

The Seven-Tails reined in its thoughts and glanced once more at Yayoi, instantly dismissing that unrealistic notion from its mind.

For this man possessed black hair and black eyes, and was certainly no youth.

"It's a bit late to mention that now. Your chakra should be able to recover to about seventy percent by next year, shouldn't it?"

Yayoi walked into the darkness, where only dim light illuminated the cage, gazing at the Seven-Tails, whose bulk had grown noticeably once more.

The chains and sealing spells upon its body had multiplied in number yet again, and their placement had shifted even further away, as if it were completely cowering in a corner, stripped even of light.

The sole tool used for illumination was the sparse, glowing scale powder shaken from its wings.

The Seven-Tails could now judge who had arrived here solely by the sound of footsteps.

Nor was it hard to guess, for the number of people who could reach this place could be counted on one hand.

With frequent visits, the Seven-Tails had grown familiar with them, capable of identifying people purely by sound.

"Calculating the time, I should be able to recover to seventy percent by then..."

The Seven-Tails made a rough estimate of its recovery speed.

If its chakra were merely being absorbed normally, its energy could actually have recovered to its peak state long ago.

However, when Yayoi created the puppet lifeform, the way he stripped away its chakra was different; it plundered something more essential to it, causing its chakra recovery speed to be very slow.

"That's good. As promised, at that time, I will forge a summoning contract with you and release you."

Yayoi produced a specially crafted white talisman, upon which a black heptagram magic circle was painted, surrounded by dense black spell scripts.

Residing upon the talisman was precisely the Sealing Art: Seven-Star Seal.

He affixed the talisman onto Seven-Tails's single horn; the moment Seven-Tails's chakra raged out of control, he would instantly activate the sealing jutsu upon it to suppress Seven-Tails's chakra at the very first instance.

Coupled with the thick chains wrapped around Seven-Tails's body, along with a multitude of other sealing talismans, it was enough to suppress Seven-Tails here and render it immobile.

Even though Seven-Tails was not in its prime state right now, he would still nip any accidents in the bud and give Seven-Tails no openings to exploit.

As expected, he isn't a pacifist either...

Seven-Tails sensed the sealing talisman affixed to the single horn on its forehead and inwardly grumbled endlessly.

It had been weakened to this extent, yet he was still guarding against it this strictly, deliberately targeting it with such advanced sealing talismans and sealing jutsu without giving it a single chance...

Having lived for so many years, it had never seen a ninja cautious to this degree.

This man was truly far too prudent!

(The appearances of Irori and Yaya both originate from the anime Unbreakable Machine-Doll, and are respectively the eldest and second sisters among the Snow Moon Flower Doll Sisters.

The protagonist's third puppet lifeform afterwards will be the third sister of the Snow Moon Flower Doll Sisters—Komurasaki, who is a relatively pure support-type doll, but her abilities will undergo heavy modification to better fit the native power system of the Ninja World.

I have placed the character illustration images of the Snow Moon Flower Doll Sisters at the end of the chapter.)