A/N: I just realized I forgot to post a chapter, I didn't even see when, lmao. Sorry, I'll post two now.
--x--
Jugo watched the cat carefully as she barked and tried to bite him, he couldn't find any difference between her and an ordinary cat, it was incredible to see.
Tired of the skittish cat, he put her to sleep. Yugito lay stretched out on his desk, falling into a deep sleep, while he, on the other hand, summoned a white werewolf Zetsu.
One of which he managed to catch while trying to snoop around his village.
What he intended to do was very simple, create a copy of Yugito and send her away, a copy with part of Matatabi's chakra. Although he didn't care about causing friction with Kumogakure, it was unnecessary. Besides, he also suspected that since Pain was prepared to act, it was very likely that not only Fuu would be targeted, but even Yugito.
If that were the case, sending Yugito away and letting her be captured wouldn't just not be his problem, but it would make the Raikage target the Akatsuki, wouldn't that be perfect?
Even so, the wolf discovered that his "seal" was far more powerful than he had imagined, even Zetsu, upon stealing Yugito's chakra, had transformed into a cat. Therefore, he had to release Yugito from the seal to complete his plan.
He doubted Matatabi would be cooperative, and judging by her friendship with Yugito, she wouldn't remain contained within the seal expecting to have part of herself cut off.
So, he separated two Snake clones and sent them away with Yugito's body and White Zetsu, so they could resolve this far from the village.
Instead, he refocused on splitting himself apart.
At that point he felt he could take down Akatsuki himself, but there were two reasons why he shouldn't.
First, he didn't know if there was anything worse than Akatsuki out there, acting now could alarm a snake and bring more powerful enemies in the future. Of course, this was just a hypothesis and not really a very valid reason.
The real reason was that he was about to create a clone that could follow the path to the Abyss, in that case, he knew very well how... perverse that path could be. He felt he could make the other Jugo act with/against the Akatsuki to accelerate his digestion.
Jugo didn't want the clone to go around causing chaos, in the future, he would merge with the clone, and he had no interest in becoming a bloodthirsty devil, even if he was contained by the Chained's path.
He knew that for a Beyonder of the Abyss pathway, being corrupted was basically the norm, but with him as support, he hoped that his side of the Abyss could be restrained.
He can restrain himself even knowing that he could dominate the world now simply because of the pathway he follows, but what if it were a Devil from the same lineage as him? Jugo had no doubt that he would already be out there massacring and corrupting this world.
Following the Chained pathway wasn't a bad choice after all, he was afraid of what he might have become.
In any case, Jugo could act as a restraint on his future diabolical side, and hopefully, when he became a king of angels and blessed him so he could advance, the Abyss Jugo wouldn't go insane and try to kill himself, that is, his Chained version.
That was the danger of what he planned to do, even knowing that by dividing, the two sides would only be parts of a whole, the corruption of the abyss pathway could make Jugo completely different from what he was now.
He imagines the Abyss Jugo as a distorted version of himself, going around causing indiscriminate massacres, raping, looting, corrupting... the list is endless, and that is his greatest fear.
That's why, even before finalizing his plan, Jugo was already thinking about how to help his Abyss version.
The biggest problems are the first two sequences, the Criminal would greatly amplify his negative desires, and Cold Blood would make him completely heartless.
These first two sequences, the very first two, are the reason why nobody from this pathway can be good.
Jugo is unwilling to take risks, so he has been planning ever since. His first idea is to use a curse to change the target of this "corruption" from the first two sequences. He would change the target to himself, and it would have no effect on him. The corruption of a sequence 9 and 8 was laughable for the power of an Angel. In that case, the other self could easily receive the powers of both sequences without being corrupted. He could do this with each advancement in the future. Even if a new sequence were to corrupt the other Jugo, everything would go to Jugo via the Chained path. At that point, with the Bind, he would not be influenced.
His other plan was to have the Devil's Jugo jump directly to sequence 7, with the Chained Jugo acting as a buffer, so the Devil's Jugo could advance completely without worrying about losing control.
To be honest, it was very simple, he felt he could even make the Devil's Jugo advance directly to the demigod without much trouble, but he wouldn't do it.
The reason was that the rituals always had a purpose, even if he could force a breakthrough without them, something could go wrong at some point and he wasn't willing to risk it. Imagine advancing and ending up with a Devil's Jugo in a vegetative state because he didn't fulfill the ritual's requirements, that wouldn't be fun.
Sure, in that case he could have Abyss Jugo advance directly to sequence 6, without any rituals until then, but he was also against it, because just as the Chained assumes a specific and individual form upon reaching sequence 4, the same happens with the Devil upon reaching sequence 6.
In that sequence, the devil's form is completely defined by what he is, what he has done, and how he acted to digest the previous sequences.
Jugo intends to let the Abyss Jugo digest the first 3 potions while he prepares to advance to Devil form, hopefully the way he acts as he advances would give him a less... evil form.
Jugo sighed, it was all theory at the moment, he would have to wait and see, so he returned to his research.