After Ryou left, Kuromaru's canine face became serious; just now, it had only been acting cute to deceive Ryou. Kuromaru was an excellent Shinobi Dog who had been on the battlefield and bitten people.
Ryou was becoming stronger and increasingly difficult to deal with.
It was true that the Shinobi Allied Forces's target was Madara, but they couldn't ignore the terrifying threat that Ryou was gradually becoming as he grew.
His growth was too rapid; perhaps by their next meeting, he would become the Shinobi Allied Forces's nightmare.
After a short while, Tsume slowly woke up and looked at Kuromaru in confusion.
"Kuromaru, your disability?!"
Kuromaru then explained to Tsume that because it had licked Ryou so comfortably just now, Ryou had given it this reward.
Tsume then checked her own injuries. She had no major injuries, her chakra had recovered, and even some internal lingering wounds in her body had been healed by Ryou.
Tsume looked at the vast, empty yellow desert with a complicated expression, as if she could see the silhouette of Ryou leaving with Shukaku.
She couldn't distinguish whether Ryou was friend or foe.
Perhaps Ryou just wanted to live a good life and never intended to be anyone's enemy. His becoming an S-rank rogue Shinobi today was all forced by the higher-ups.
"Sigh... Uchiha... forget it. If only the Village could have been more tolerant toward Ryou-senpai."
Human experiments in the Village were numerous.
In the original work, Orochimaru said that developing a new technique required over a hundred live experimental subjects.
Even if Konoha wasn't as cruel as Orochimaru, they still needed live trials to test new techniques.
The Inuzuka Clan, Aburame Clan, and Hyuga Clan were all excellent reconnaissance Shinobi Clans of Konoha.
Under the Byakugan of the Hyuga Clan, the secrets in Konoha's shadows had nowhere to hide.
What about under the sense of smell of the Inuzuka Clan?
When the Inuzuka Clan uses their family Secret Technique, they can obtain a sense of smell tens of thousands of times greater than that of an ordinary person.
The smell of blood in Konoha's darkness, the stench of rotting corpses, the smell of mold...
Under the super-smell of the Inuzuka Clan, everything was smelled clearly.
If a person killed someone, the Byakugan might not see it, but the Inuzuka Clan could smell it.
Konoha was not a gentle Village; it was a place where light and darkness coexisted.
Just because ordinary people don't come into contact with that darkness doesn't mean it doesn't exist.
It is right there within the roots of the tree underground.
The Inuzuka Clan smelled it and guessed it, but like the Hyuga Clan, they chose to remain silent.
They were just a group of dog breeders; doing their own jobs well was enough.
Regarding Ryou's defection, Tsume felt that the Village could have been tolerant.
After all, what they did was even more excessive than what Ryou did.
But Ryou's sensitive identity as a member of the Uchiha Clan caused the higher-ups to choose to escalate the situation.
One wrong step led to many more; everything was because the Village deliberately targeted the Uchiha, wishing they would all rebel.
Tsume then set aside her complicated feelings and checked the organ that Kuromaru had regrown.
The ear was fine, but the eye...
"This is a human eye, isn't it?"
Kuromaru nodded: "Yeah, Brother Ryou used Rasa's eye to perform a transplant for me. What's wrong?"
Tsume asked: "Does it have any special abilities?"
Kuromaru shook its head: "Nothing special, it's a pure nerf!"
Rasa's eye was just an ordinary person's eye and had no special abilities.
It also didn't contain chakra; after all, ordinary eyes don't contain chakra pathways, so it couldn't obtain Rasa's Magnet Release Secret Technique.
Moreover, human eyes are inferior to dog eyes in some aspects.
A dog's dynamic vision and night vision crush a human's; a human's field of vision is only 180°, but a dog's is 270°.
It's generally very hard to sneak up on a dog.
Tsume pressed down on Kuromaru's head, somewhat disappointed: "I got my hopes up for nothing!"
Kuromaru was speechless: "What's there to look forward to? I'm already very satisfied to get an eye back."
Kuromaru crouched in front of Tsume, letting her sit on its back, and carried her as it ran toward Sunagakure.
Transplanting Rasa's eye wasn't without any benefits for Kuromaru.
Humans can see the three primary colors—red, green, and blue—and the world is rich in color; dogs are equivalent to being red-green colorblind, so the world they see isn't as colorful.
Through Rasa's eye, Kuromaru saw for the first time that the human world was so rich.
"Tsume, I want to be a human!"
"Get lost!"
Sunagakure, Kazekage Mansion.
Chiyo, Ebizo, and others frowned as they looked at the tragic scene in the Elder Council's meeting room.
The air was as stagnant as if it were filled with lead, mixed with the lingering smell of blood, the cold, harsh scent of iron sand, and a violent, poisonous stench carrying the air of decay.
Those elders, who used to be so overbearing, all had their eyes wide open, with extreme terror and disbelief frozen in their cloudy pupils.
Their injuries were wretched; iron sand as fine as needles had densely pierced through their clothes and flesh.
The place that was once a solemn and dignified meeting ground now held only a suffocating, hideous silence.
This place was hell.
"Sasori..."
Chiyo froze in place, her blood seemingly turning to ice instantly.
She could no longer deceive herself; the bloody scene before her told Chiyo the truth.
Sasori was no longer the Sasori of the past; he was a poisonous creature covered in venom, cruelty, and hideousness.
"What on earth should I use to save you?"
Chiyo knelt down, lying on the ground and weeping alone.
Baki and the Sunagakure Anbu nearby chose to quietly withdraw upon seeing this, leaving Ebizo alone to accompany Chiyo in her grief.
Ebizo was silent for a while before comforting Chiyo: "Sister, perhaps Sasori did this for you!"
Chiyo asked through her tears, confused: "For me? Why?"
Ebizo said: "It was you who confirmed Uchiha Ryou's identity when he was disguised as Sasori. No matter what, it was you who brought the evil Uchiha into the Village."
"Regarding Shukaku being taken and two generations of Kazekage being killed, since the Elder Council couldn't deal with Sasori, they would have collectively pressured Sasori's closest relative."
"If the members of the Elder Council were still alive, they would have forced you and me into retirement."
Chiyo slowly began to understand: "In other words, Sasori was clearing away the future troubles for the two of us?"
Ebizo nodded: "Yes. Without Rasa and the Elder Council, you have the final say in Sunagakure now, Sister."
Sunagakure still had Pakura, but Pakura didn't have Chiyo's prestige; her authority in the Village was insufficient.
Furthermore, now that Chiyo had regained her youth, her superb Puppet Technique, combined with combat experience richer than anyone else in Sunagakure...
Dealing with Pakura would be like dealing with a small fry.
Now, Sunagakure could no longer find anyone who could balance Chiyo; she had obtained power more concentrated than even the Kazekage.
"Did Sasori really think that way?"
Hope rose in Chiyo's heart. Sasori hadn't completely fallen into hell; he could still be saved.
As long as she found a way to let "Father" and "Mother" possess the consciousness of Sasori's parents, she could pull Sasori out of hell.
"But why did Sasori even kill the elders who supported me?"
"..."
Ebizo was silent for a moment and explained: "Presumably, Sasori found it hard to distinguish, so he just killed them all to be done with it!"
Chiyo sighed: "Sigh... actually, Sasori's essence is bloodthirsty."