Mount Tenmoku

Unlike the noisy bustle outside, the stone room was silent. Only the steady footsteps of Ninja patrols reached it from beyond the walls. Such tight security was proof that whatever was stored here ranked among the outpost's highest secrets.

The shadow that had slipped into the room clung to a dark corner, then took human form again.

On the cliff, Tsukimi fully linked his sight to the Shadow Ninja's and scanned the documents on the desk.

The Shadow Ninja picked up the file on top. It was a list of supply transfers from the past few months, with countless materials recorded in meticulous detail.

Green Velvet Grass powder, poisonous herb extract, toxin stabilizers, Puppet joint components, mechanical parts adapted to the human body...

Every material's source was marked "covert channels," not official Sand Hidden supply. The crucial destination column gave only strings of numbers. Every record of incoming supplies, allocation, and transport bore Rasa's signature at the end.

What was Rasa trying to pull behind Sand Hidden's back?

The Shadow Ninja stood before the shelves and rapidly leafed through the ledgers. Their records stretched back to the middle of last year, and the volume of supplies had grown month by month right up to the present.

Yet even after checking every ledger and transfer record, Tsukimi could only trace the movement of vast quantities of supplies. He could not find their ultimate purpose or destination.

And what did those mysterious numbers mean?

"How's it going?"

As Tsukimi pondered, Asuma's voice broke in, thick with impatience and curiosity.

He's been in there forever. Has he found a lead or not?

"Quiet. I'm thinking!" Tsukimi rolled his eyes at Asuma, then explained, "So far, I've only found supply and transfer records. This is definitely one of Rasa's supply depots, but I still can't see what his real plan is. The destinations are encrypted too."

"With this much material, Rasa must be planning something big," Kurenai said, her expression growing grave. "We need to find their main base."

Tsukimi drew a deep breath and set his thoughts aside. He returned his attention to the Shadow Ninja and kept searching through the files. This time, he found something new.

At the bottom of the desk, a document lay pinned beneath a heavy ledger. The Shadow Ninja carefully slid it out.

It had a double-layered waterproof cover stamped with a top-secret seal.

The writing inside was clear. The document contained only a few lines, but they sent a chill through Tsukimi.

[Evacuate the poison-making outpost in the southwestern mountains immediately. Leave clues framing Cloud Hidden. In seven days, guide a village investigation team into the outpost and provoke a clash between the two sides. Divert outside Ninja investigating the matter. Record the investigators' movements.]

The secret order was terse and cold. Its contents largely matched Tsukimi's suspicions. Weakening Pakura's faction was merely a bonus; throwing investigators off the trail was Rasa's true aim.

Rasa was far too good at scheming. Pakura was too straightforward to stand a chance against him.

Now that Tsukimi understood Rasa's setup, he still had no intention of stopping. He needed to learn where the supplies had gone and what Rasa truly wanted.

The Shadow Ninja kept searching, passing over the ordinary ledgers to focus on hidden compartments, encrypted appendices, and other vital documents.

After several minutes of careful searching, he found a thin sheet tucked into a hidden compartment at the back of a shelf.

Only when Tsukimi examined it did he realize it was not an inventory sheet but a map of the Land of Rivers.

It marked terrain coordinates for the country's major mountain ranges. Beside each range was no name, only a six-digit code. The mysterious numbers from the ledgers were among them.

Of course. That solved it!

The numbers in the ledgers were not random codes. They were district numbers Rasa had assigned. Every shipment from this valley had followed the coordinates to his central base.

Tsukimi committed the map and its coded coordinates to memory, then noticed a line of small text in the lower right corner.

"Living Puppet: Experimental base for adapting Puppets and Chakra-activated human bodies"

Tsukimi's pupils contracted. Every clue snapped into place.

Rasa was the mastermind behind it all.

From buying Green Velvet Grass powder in the Land of Fire to stockpiling toxin stabilizers, seeking a new poison, luring his rivals into a trap, and even sacrificing Ninja from his own village, he had spent a year concealing his real plan layer by layer: creating Living Puppets infused with toxins as weapons of war.

Rasa was going this far? Human experiments too? What did he know about the human body?

Then again, he was conducting the experiments behind his village's back. He was probably funding them himself. No wonder he wanted Kawata Genji dead. He'd worked hard mining gold, only for a greedy merchant to jack up the price.

That was my damn money!

On the cliff, Tsukimi had the Shadow Ninja put every document back in place before slowly opening his eyes. Chakra gathered at his fingertips as he swiftly traced the complete map and its six-digit codes onto the ground. Asuma and the other two gathered around.

"Teacher, where is this?"

Tsukimi pointed to the center of the map, where the bulk of the supplies had ended up. Orochimaru studied it, his golden slit pupils narrowing slightly. He recognized the place almost at once.

"This is Mount Tenmoku, an uninhabited restricted area deep in the Land of Rivers."

"Mount Tenmoku?" Asuma looked at Tsukimi in confusion. "What does Mount Tenmoku have to do with this? Where did you get that map?"

With the main base's location confirmed, Tsukimi told them everything he had learned.

"So Mount Tenmoku is where their main base is?" After hearing the full report, Asuma rubbed his hands together, ready for a fight. "What are we waiting for? Let's go! We can hit them before they realize we're onto them."

"Don't rush, Asuma." Kurenai put a hand on his shoulder, her brow furrowed. "Even if we know where it is, that's their stronghold. There won't be just a few Ninja guarding it. If we charge in, we'll get ourselves killed."

Her words doused Asuma's enthusiasm. After a moment's thought, Tsukimi turned to Orochimaru beside him and asked gravely, "Teacher, do you know how to contact the border forces?"

"You want to ask the border forces for help?" Orochimaru raised an eyebrow, as though he had already guessed Tsukimi's plan.

"Exactly!"