"Morino, I've finished today's autopsy work. The test reports have been sorted and sealed. If there's nothing else, I'll go find a spot near the memorial stones to bury the bodies."
Kaede Tsukasa took his umbrella and stepped outside.
A fine rain fell in the late-night sky. Carrying a lantern, he walked through the forest of memorial stones and stopped at a vacant patch on the far edge.
He raised his chisel and carved an unfamiliar name into a tombstone, casually adding the false claim: "Killed a Sunagakure Chūnin."
The sound of the blade scraping stone was like nails dragging across a coffin lid.
The corpse he had sutured by hand today bore a fatal wound on the skull that clearly came from a Konoha kunai.
This was one of the routine tasks of the body disposal department: the intelligence and interrogation division of the supervising department would issue orders, and subordinate departments—body disposal, intelligence compilation, prison management—would act to bury unidentifiable, damaged corpses.
For each name added to the casualty list, the Lord of the Land of Fire would allocate an additional amount in condolence funds. That extra money ultimately became funding for human experimentation projects.
Late in the war, economic pressure was enormous; Konoha could not rely solely on its own resources to sustain the conflict. Essentially, Konoha was a massive military district of the Land of Fire. For a prolonged war, the nobles and lords of the Land of Fire, leading all their towns, would have to supply reinforcements to Konoha.
In such circumstances, scraping extra research funds from the Land of Fire's treasury was never easy, especially for projects without immediate wartime benefits—they required special measures.
This was the village's will. It had to be carried out.
The cemetery soil, swollen from the rain, squelched underfoot. Kaede Tsukasa dragged the corpse of a Yūgakure Chūnin into his personal office.
In this tiny five-person organization, the small size had its advantages. Kaede Tsukasa always had enough space for his work, and his colleagues rarely interfered—they all dealt with corpses and carried out secretive tasks contrary to the noble ideals of the Will of Fire. Special indulgence for certain personal interests was higher here.
"October 25th, Kaede Tsukasa continues practicing Zombie Release. No contact with the shrine maiden has been observed for now."
Morino Isuke glanced up, silently recording the note, and returned to the corpse before him. Though he disliked this work, as a shinobi he had no right to choose; he could only accept and execute the mission.
…
Pale blue chakra seeped from Kaede Tsukasa's fingertips into the corpse's meridians. The dead man's eyes bulged in the darkness, and his decayed throat emitted a raspy "huff huff."
"Thirty-seventh comparative experiment this month: Chūnin dead for over forty-eight hours can only sustain high-intensity physical activity for fifteen minutes before spinal fracture; Chūnin dead less than forty-eight hours can use most of the jutsu they had mastered in life, though finger bones sometimes shatter during hand seals…"
What interested Kaede Tsukasa most was the corpse of a Jonin from Sunagakure—a zombified puppet master whose fingers could even generate chakra threads.
"Based on my experience with the corpse transport team and the body disposal department, the ten minutes before brain death is the optimal conversion window. A zombie created within this period almost perfectly replicates its former strength, and for a certain time, can even unleash greater power than in life. However, this requires extracting chakra at any cost, which means the body deteriorates at an astonishing rate—basically, one fight and it's done."
That wasn't entirely a waste. Before the body was rendered useless, he could trigger a corruption explosion to inflict extra damage—waste turned into utility.
Kaede Tsukasa sketched graphs in his experimental log. The lobes of the Sunagakure zombie's lungs displayed strange, web-like patterns.
He casually slit the zombie's throat. The instant black blood surged, the rotted vocal cords quivered and tore completely, silencing the instinctive roar forever. This corpse had been a Jonin-level puppet master, still retaining about forty percent of its original strength.
The only regret Kaede Tsukasa felt was that his first Jonin under control was a puppet master—he didn't have enough puppets to supply the zombie.
Perhaps some cheap Chūnin or lower-rank zombie corpses could serve as puppets for this Jonin-level zombie? A zombie using other zombies in combat… maybe this could be considered a new jutsu he had developed, Kaede Tsukasa thought.
The front doors suddenly slammed open, and the metallic smell of blood broke his train of thought.
Two Root shinobi burst in, carrying a stretcher with a young ninja, his body purple-black and twitching. Black blood oozed from his seven orifices, pooling thickly on the metal table.
Kaede Tsukasa glanced over—he recognized him.
Fubuki Tonbo.
"He's beyond saving."
Morino Isuke gave a brief check and shook his head. "Our war with the Rain Village is over. This must be Sunagakure poison. His organs are already eroded. He should have been dealt with early—why did they send him here alive?"
One Root shinobi ripped off bloodstained gloves and threw them on the floor to eliminate any chance of contamination. "The medical ninjas in the hospital treated him for two days but couldn't save him. To conserve medical resources, they effectively abandoned treatment. Lady Tsunade was on a mission with Lord Katou Dan; they couldn't analyze the poison. Lord Aburame Ryoma ordered us to send him here."
"I still can't save him," Morino Isuke said.
"You're not meant to save him. While he's still alive, you need to dissect his body, observe the changes in his organs, and compile a detailed analysis report of this poison. The report will ultimately be submitted to Lady Tsunade as reference material for countering Sunagakure's toxins."
Another Root shinobi spoke coldly. Beneath the mask, his eyes showed no emotion, only ruthless detachment. "This is a B-Rank mission. Success will enhance your record. But leak this mission, and you will become the target of the task yourselves."
Morino Isuke frowned but nodded. "I understand. No fools or loose-tongued idiots enter the body disposal department. Everyone here knows their fate…"
Dissecting and analyzing a living shinobi from one's own village, if exposed, would spark outrage and severely damage frontline morale.
Morino Isuke looked at the two Root shinobi, then down at the struggling young ninja, severed the last shred of empathy he had, and ordered the "diagnosis" to begin.