Inside the cliff cave, it was unusually quiet. Only the faint crackling sounds of thick firewood burning could be heard.
Hayate and Yūgao watched Makoto's experiment. Although they could not understand it, they were deeply shocked, and felt that their companion was unusually mysterious today.
Neither of them pitied the two rogue ninjas who had been reduced to experimental subjects. They had seen plenty of such people after completing missions. Basically none of them were good people; they deserved to die in the first place.
Or rather, ninjas were not good people either—including themselves. Every one of them had blood on their hands.
Ninjas only spoke of stance, ninja way, and bonds with comrades and loved ones. They were unwilling to dwell too much on distinctions between good and evil.
Becoming entangled in the ideological conflict between justice and evil would one day cause one's personality to split and turn one into a lunatic.
As their teacher, Kumomi had warned them more than once: hold fast to one's own ninja way, protect Konohagakure and one's companions, do not attack ordinary innocent people, and do not oppress the good.
As for the rest, there was no need to examine things too closely. Many matters simply had no standard answer.
At this moment, while deep in thought, Hayate suddenly recalled that the wife of the Fourth Hokage was Konohagakure's jinchūriki and would soon give birth. Combining that with Makoto's current experiment, he arrived at a deeper conjecture.
After quite some time had passed, Makoto finally waited until the Seven-Tails' chakra had completely fused with the rogue ninja.
In his perception, the two were clearly different kinds of chakra, yet they were deeply linked and bound together at the level of vitality, no different from a normal jinchūriki.
Four Symbols Seal: Release!
"Ah~~~!"
As Makoto released the seal and let the Seven-Tails' chakra flow out, the rogue ninja—the pseudo-jinchūriki—let out a painful scream.
"You bastard from Konohagakure! What did you do to me?! Let me go! I'm going to kill you—I will definitely kill you!"
The mortal threat allowed him to break through the genjutsu. He tried to struggle desperately and cursed at Makoto in front of him.
However, his mind still did not seem fully clear. He had not noticed that his entire body was already under the control of cursed seals.
If it had not been for the sake of observing his reactions more accurately, Makoto would not even have given him the chance to speak.
His hand never left the other person's body as he carefully sensed every change in the pseudo-jinchūriki after the tailed beast's chakra was drawn out.
Then he discovered that the other person's originally intact body seemed to have been opened at some level, with vitality rapidly leaking away.
An intact river dike had developed a breach. Unfortunately, human vitality was not like a river—it was not endless and would soon run dry.
The sealing runes on the abdomen had already disappeared. There was no wound, but it seemed that something had been drawn away together with the tailed beast's chakra.
The completeness of his life as a human had been completely destroyed.
The balance between vitality and spiritual power had been broken. The two could no longer tightly connect into a single whole. A shattered mirror could not be made whole again; death was inevitable.
Next came the most crucial moment. Success or failure would be decided in this single attempt.
For once, Makoto formed hand seals with both hands, mobilizing the chakra within his body and guiding it to transform toward the two poles of Yin nature and Yang nature.
This was a fūinjutsu he had developed to deal specifically with situations like this, based on his own circumstances after studying the shinobi world's top-tier sealing knowledge under Uzumaki Kushina.
And it could only be performed in Sage Mode.
Because only in that mode was his chakra control precise enough for him to mobilize both poles of Yin and Yang at the same time.
Sage Art: Fūinjutsu: Two Forms Seal!
As he pressed his right palm onto the rogue ninja's abdomen, Yin–Yang attribute chakra carrying natural energy rapidly formed a complex sealing pattern.
The outer layer was still a stable Four Symbols barrier formed from twisted runes. The inner ring was no longer in a whirlpool shape, but instead became a Yin–Yang symbol formed by two fish-like shapes—one dark, one light.
With the completion of the "Two Forms Seal," the Yin–Yang balance of the rogue ninja's body was rebuilt, greatly slowing the rate at which his vitality was leaking away.
It worked—but it didn't completely work.
Judging by the current rate of vitality loss, what had originally been "he wouldn't last even a minute" became "he can still keep hopping around for about two years."
If he used ninjutsu during that time, he would die even faster.
Makoto fell into thought.
It seemed this method was feasible. It could effectively resolve the death crisis that occurs after a jinchūriki has their tailed beast extracted, and it was different in concept from Chiyo's life-for-life revival technique, "One's Own Life Reincarnation."
The "Two Forms Seal" merely helped rebuild a person's Yin–Yang balance, so it did not require the caster to pay with their life. But for that very reason, it also could not revive someone who had already died; it did not fall within the category of revival techniques.
Unfortunately, because his Yin–Yang attributes were not pure enough, the balance he constructed had loopholes. That was why the ninjutsu was not perfect and could not completely stop the loss of vitality.
As for that, there was nothing he could do for now. He had never relaxed his training in controlling chakra's Yin–Yang attributes, but progress was slow.
For the time being, he could only strengthen the effect of the "Two Forms Seal" by adjusting the precision of the runes in the outer Four Symbols Seal.
Makoto acted as soon as he thought of it. He immediately took out a blank scroll and a brush, thinking as he adjusted and rebuilt the arrangement of the runes.
After quite a while, he performed the same experiment on another rogue ninja, and found that the effect really was much better. But this was also the limit of what he could achieve at present.
Even if he handed it to Minato and Kushina to study, they would not be able to pick out any flaws in the completeness of the fūinjutsu.
In fact, they might not even be able to understand it—because this was a fūinjutsu Makoto had developed by relying on the shinobi world's sealing arts and combining them with the knowledge from his previous life.
It had already become a school of its own, just like the principles he followed when developing ninjutsu.
...
After collecting the Seven-Tails' chakra, Makoto used the two of them again to conduct experiments with natural energy.
The results were still not very satisfactory.
If white natural energy was sealed into the human body using fūinjutsu, the result was merely sealing a mass of energy. It produced no senjutsu effect and was even less capable of meeting the requirement of long-term nourishment and strengthening of the host's body and spirit.
Because of the extremely high inertness of white natural energy, it was even worse than tailed beast chakra—it simply could not be utilized by ninjas.
If it was injected directly, the result was the same as in previous experiments: the white natural energy would directly decompose and assimilate the vitality of the experimental subject's soul and body, leaving them without even the qualification to go to the Pure Land, leaving behind only a purely material shell.
Makoto even injected white natural energy into the Two Forms Seal, trying to find a breakthrough. The result was that it directly destroyed the balance of the energy structure within the seal, and then returned to the old path—killing the experimental subject.
Truly a troublesome kind of energy.
The pitiful two rogue ninja experimental subjects ultimately still failed to survive. They successfully lost their lives—the kind that even Impure World Reincarnation could not bring back.
Makoto had never intended to spare them in the first place, and even less did he plan to control them to serve him and collect intelligence for him in the shinobi world.
With the powerful intelligence system of Konohagakure at his back, he had no need to take risks to develop another one. When there was a ready-made system available, insisting on building a new network from scratch would simply be a sign of a faulty brain.
After throwing the two corpses outside and burning them to ashes with Fire Release, Makoto returned to the cliff cave. Sitting at the entrance of the cave, he looked at the moon in the sky while thinking about something.
Based on the intelligence currently in his possession, the white natural energy was very likely the most primitive natural energy of this world.
As for the red, cyan, purple, green, and other variant energies, they were either products of contamination by the God Tree or products formed after mixing with the wills of non-human intelligent beings such as those from the Three Great Sage Regions.
This was the struggle for discourse power over the highest-tier energy in this world among different races.
He now seriously suspected that perhaps it was precisely because of the extreme inertness and danger of primitive natural energy that the Ōtsutsuki Clan simply could not find any way to utilize it. In the end, they directly developed the God Tree—a biological weapon—to crudely convert it into energy that could be easily used.
After this energy was spread to humanity by the Sage of Six Paths, it formed the chakra system, becoming the source of power for ninjas and completely making extraordinary power cheap, universal, and extremely easy to access.
If that was the case, then the fact that he himself could utilize primitive natural energy meant that, from the very moment he first came into contact with natural energy, he had already silently joined this struggle for discourse power over strength.
...
After tying up the mission target, Hayate and Yūgao came to the cave entrance and sat down beside Makoto, enjoying the moonlight together.
Although they knew that ninjas should not ask too many questions, seeing Makoto acting so mysterious—and wearing a level of seriousness during the experiment they had never seen before—made them, as friends, still want to show some concern.
As for the missing-nin? That guy had been caught in a genjutsu and was tied up like a rice dumpling. He could not stir up any trouble. Even if he woke up and broke free, so what? He could not even defeat Yūgao.
Hayate asked, "Makoto, are you preparing for Kushina-senpai's childbirth?"
"Yeah. Isn't that obvious?"
"But why? Aren't the Third Hokage-sama and Fourth Hokage-sama already there?"
"Hayate, we grew up together. You know me. When I do things, I always like to make thorough preparations to guard against the unexpected. It's better to be prepared."
"Is that so? But I still feel like you seem to know something. Yūgao thinks the same."
Yūgao nodded. "Yes, yes. That's what I think too."
"I don't need to know anything. Just the title of 'the strongest tailed beast' is enough to make me cautious. In the shinobi world, all kinds of strange things can happen. So, in order to protect my family and friends—to protect you two—isn't it normal for me to make a few more preparations?"
Hayate was directly moved by this strong sense of bonds and his train of thought went off track. "Makoto, you really are a reliable companion."
The young girl said stubbornly, "Don't underestimate me, Makoto. I'm very strong now too."
"Oh? Is that so? Then let me ask you the same question from the graduation exam. In Team Three, who can you defeat?"
"…."
Yūgao punched Makoto. "You're a jerk."
"Alright. Thanks for your concern. Don't think too much about it. There's still quite a bit of time before dawn. Get some rest early—we still have to hurry back to Konohagakure tomorrow."
Makoto naturally knew that they were not asking out of curiosity, but out of concern. However, no matter what, he would not tell the truth.
This was called a well-intentioned lie.
The shinobi world was not a place where revealing all information could solve problems. That would only make things more chaotic and uncontrollable.
Even if all the information were exposed through secret means, the first thing every force would do would be to find the source of that information.
An enemy who had been exposed was no longer truly frightening. The person who could possess so many secrets was the greatest security risk, standing in opposition to everyone.
That was the way ninjas thought.
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