A few minutes ago.
Ryou and Candy frequently practiced their combined transformation.
The chakra of the Futamata-no-O-no-Mikoto form paired with Candy was comparable to the Nine-Tails.
It was practically a natural disaster descending.
This could be considered Ryou's trump card.
On the other side, Sasori had basically finished turning Rasa's corpse into a Human Puppet.
At this moment, he was working on Rasa's technique formula, which, like the Third Kazekage, would allow him to release Ninjutsu without forming hand seals.
Kakuzu's Earth Grudge Fear could only seize the original owner's chakra nature and provide extra chakra reserves through the hearts.
If the owner of the heart possessed any Kekkei Genkai or Secret Technique before death, Kakuzu could not inherit them.
Sasori's Human Puppet was different; it could inherit all the Ninjutsu and Kekkei Genkai the puppet had in life.
The core of this lay in Sasori's regeneration core technology.
Sasori specially processed Rasa's heart and then began copying his Ninjutsu into the heart's chakra core.
This way, as long as the chakra threads were triggered, Rasa, as a Human Puppet, could release the Magnet Release Ninjutsu he used in life.
However, Sasori didn't need Rasa for combat; he already had the Third Kazekage.
What Sasori wanted was Rasa's gold dust Secret Technique.
He needed a lot of gold for his puppets.
Sasori used Ninjutsu to infiltrate Rasa's brain and seize his gold dust Secret Technique.
Using Secret Techniques to read others' memories was not exclusive to the Yamanaka clan.
Many people in the Shinobi World possessed Secret Techniques to read memories.
Nagato's Human Path possessed the miraculous ability to read memories.
Aoba Yamashiro also had a Secret Technique to infiltrate the brain and read memories.
Every major Hidden Village had its own Secret Techniques to investigate the memories of the deceased, so a Shinobi was not just a mere corpse after death.
The work of the Anbu also involved disposing of the bodies of the Village's Shinobi who died abroad to prevent their heads from falling into the hands of rival Villages and leaking intelligence.
Sasori was no novice when it came to understanding the brain; he possessed the Memory-Concealing Sand Manipulation Technique.
By passing extremely small needles through the brain's memory center, he could seal the target's memories; once the technique was released, the memories would vanish.
Sasori had used this technique on Yura and Kabuto.
The effect was excellent; Yura was completely unaware that he was Sasori's mole and had grandly worked his way into the upper echelons of Sunagakure.
While probing the intelligence in Rasa's brain, Sasori took out a scroll and began recording.
Soon, he found a very good technique, Rasa's reconnaissance Secret Technique—the third eye.
Sasori copied this technique onto a scroll and then tossed it to Ryou.
"Uchiha Ryou, for you!"
Ryou caught it in confusion and opened it to see a Secret Technique, a reconnaissance technique.
It was the third eye that Gaara and Rasa used in the original work.
This was a signature sensory Ninjutsu of the Sunagakure Kazekage lineage.
The principle was to infuse chakra into sand, making it condense into a floating eye, and then connecting the sand eye to one's own optic nerves via chakra.
This allowed for observing distant views.
Ryou memorized the technique and then tossed it to Candy.
This technique was useless to Ryou because the White Zetsu cells in his body were already a top-tier reconnaissance Kekkei Genkai.
However, the more techniques the better; the world seen through chakra sensing was not that rich.
The world seen through the third eye was the same as that seen with both eyes.
Imagine, Ryou could use the third eye from home to peep into the women's bathhouse.
Speaking of techniques, what Ryou cared about most was Rasa's Magnet Release Secret Technique.
Whether it was Rasa or the Third Kazekage, their Magnet Release was not a Kekkei Genkai, but a Secret Technique.
Since it was a Secret Technique, it could be learned.
Ryou didn't need to use the Chimera Technique to devour their cells to obtain Magnet Release; he just needed to probe Rasa's intelligence to get the memories of practicing the Magnet Release Secret Technique.
Just as Ryou wanted to join Sasori in probing Rasa's memories, White Zetsu sent a signal.
"Ryou, something unexpected happened in Nagato and Konan's operation to capture the Seven-Tails. Jiraiya and Kakuzu have broken into Takigakure."
Ryou was shocked: "How did Kakuzu end up with Jiraiya?"
Kakuzu was a top-ranked S-class rogue Shinobi in the underworld, while Jiraiya was one of Konoha's Sannin. Logically, they should have nothing to do with each other.
How did they team up?
Sasori said in a cold voice: "Under the threat of Uchiha Madara, whether they are rogue Shinobi or fence-sitting Villages, everyone has to pick a side."
Ryou understood. Once Madara's Eye of the Moon Plan was successfully implemented, no one would escape.
This war was no longer limited to internal strife among Shinobi; the secular world, the rogue world, the Daimyo, the noble lords... everyone was being dragged in.
Previously, Sasori had sided with Madara and planned to head to the Land of Rain to join him, but he was enslaved by Ryou halfway there.
Kakuzu liked money, so he belonged to the materialist faction and would certainly not accept a world of Genjutsu. Therefore, he chose a different camp than in the original work.
He joined the Five Great Nations.
Ryou was only surprised for a moment and wasn't particularly wary.
Kakuzu was indeed strong, but his strength had limits. Like Hidan, because they were hard to kill, ordinary Shinobi were easily killed by Kakuzu upon their first encounter.
For example, Asuma was killed by Hidan in their first encounter!
But if one knew the intelligence on their Forbidden Jutsus, they could be easily countered. A few Jonin working together could defeat them.
Kakuzu relied on the four elemental masks formed by Earth Grudge Fear. To kill him, one had to kill him five times or completely destroy his main body.
For Ryou, this wasn't difficult.
Ryou immediately responded to White Zetsu: "Zetsu, have Konan summon Candy over there, and then have Candy use Reverse Summoning to bring me to Takigakure."
Ryou was currently in the desert of the Land of Wind, separated from the Land of Waterfalls by two countries: the Land of Rain and the Land of Grass.
Even flying on a Wood Dragon, he wouldn't reach Takigakure in a short time.
Ryou was starting to feel a need for flight Ninjutsu.
Rasa's Magnet Release could achieve aerial levitation by controlling sand; he had to learn it!
Since he couldn't reach Takigakure by moving in a straight line now, Ryou chose the summoning method: let Konan summon his Shinobi Cat first, and then the Shinobi Cat would use Reverse Summoning to bring him there.
This required the Shinobi Cat as a medium. Couldn't Konan just summon him directly?
No, because there was no summoning contract between Ryou and his clones.
In the original work, when Naruto wanted to summon his clones that were refining Senjutsu chakra at Mount Myōboku, he relied on a summoning scroll.
If Konan wanted to summon him, she would have to create a summoning scroll anchored to him beforehand.
Ryou felt that the Summoning Jutsu could still be further developed.
The summoning between a Shinobi and a Summoned Beast relied on a summoning contract, and the core of the summoning contract was a blood pact.
The connection between a clone and the main body was chakra, which was a higher-level link than a blood pact medium.
Could the Summoning Jutsu be modified to achieve free summoning between the main body and clones?
Ryou thought it was possible; the Flying Thunder God Technique was a modification of the Summoning Jutsu.
Ryou transmitted his thoughts to the Spore Clones researching Ninjutsu in Amegakure, and then began waiting for Konan's summoning.