Chapter 60 – A Name Echoes in Sunagakure
When Danzo entered the Hokage's office, his face was already dark. When he left, it was even darker. No one knew what he and Hiruzen had discussed, but clearly, he hadn't come out victorious.
Back at Root headquarters, Danzo immediately ordered his subordinates to suspend several of their ongoing plans targeting Nan.
Meanwhile, Nan himself had no idea that Hiruzen and Danzo had already crossed swords behind closed doors over him. He couldn't even be sure whether Danzo had been the one to leak his whereabouts to Sunagakure—though, by the "when in doubt, blame Danzo" principle, he strongly suspected it.
What Nan didn't know was that Hiruzen had already marked him as a potential future Hokage candidate. That was why Danzo wanted him gone. Nan hadn't connected the dots; to him, Danzo was just the most likely snake in the grass.
Since Hiruzen had been so stingy with rewards this time, Nan decided not to mention the spoils he'd taken off the puppeteer's corpse.
Specifically, four puppets.
He secretly kept them, without informing the Hokage.
Technically, shinobi were allowed to keep spoils unrelated to the mission, but standard procedure required them to be inspected by specialists for hidden traps or seals. After all, many ninja left protective measures on their tools—or even their bodies—to prevent enemies from exploiting them after death.
But Nan knew these puppets weren't ordinary. If he handed them over, Konoha's researchers would almost certainly keep them for "long-term study of Suna's puppet techniques"… and never give them back.
If Hiruzen had given him a real reward, Nan would have gladly contributed them. But since the Hokage had been stingy?
Then it was only fair that Nan played selfish in return.
Besides, he was confident in his own skills. Any traps left on the puppets had to be chakra-based—seals, mechanisms, or hidden triggers. None of those could escape the gaze of his Sharingan.
During the battle, he had observed everything with his eyes fully active. He had seen exactly how the puppeteer condensed and controlled chakra threads.
For an ordinary Uchiha, even spotting the threads wouldn't help; without impeccable chakra control, imitation was impossible.
But Nan was no ordinary Uchiha. His ocular power was greater than most, and his chakra control was world-class.
Now, like a child with a brand-new toy, he was experimenting. Using chakra threads, he clumsily manipulated one of the captured puppets—a dual-blade model—that wobbled forward on shaky steps.
He chose this one for practice because the others were more complicated. Two of them were laced with poison—if he triggered a hidden needle or gas by accident, his entire house might be ruined. The dual-blade puppet, by contrast, was simple: just two swords, no gimmicks.
Before long, Nan was able to mimic some of the techniques he'd copied with the Sharingan, making the puppet move on command.
Still, it was frustratingly difficult. Puppet techniques were an advanced field of study, on par with ninjutsu, taijutsu, or genjutsu. With just fragments stolen from a dead man's movements, Nan could barely make the puppet walk straight, let alone fight.
He soon realized that without a true teacher, becoming a real puppeteer was impossible. With a sigh, he abandoned further training for now.
But one thing did catch his attention.
That technique the puppeteer had used against him—Kikō Junbū (Mechanized Light Shield Block).
He remembered it well from the original story: Chiyo had once used it to defend against Sasori's Third Kazekage puppet. A powerful defensive jutsu, and extremely practical.
The problem was, it required a puppet as a medium. Chakra had to be funneled through threads into the puppet's mechanisms, forming a dense barrier. A human body alone couldn't replicate it. Even Nan's Sharingan couldn't overcome that limitation.
Unless…
His gaze shifted to the massive defense-type puppet in his collection. Its bulky arms had been the medium for Kikō Junbū.
"What if I just… took those arms for myself?"
With his knowledge of mechanics and physics from his previous life, Nan began sketching an idea. If he dismantled the puppet's arms and refashioned them into armored gauntlets, he could wear them himself. That way, he might personally channel chakra into them and activate the shield technique.
The thought made his eyes gleam.
---
While Nan tinkered with his trophies, elsewhere, Takahashi—the sole surviving Sunagakure operative—finally staggered back toward his village.
The journey had been hell. He had hidden his comrades' corpses as best he could, then realized he didn't even have enough money left for the road. Unlike Nan, who could travel swiftly via Tanzaku Town, Takahashi had to avoid both Konoha and their patrols, then skirt the battlefields along the Fire Country border.
It took days of detours.
And when he checked his tool pouch, it was empty. His teammates' pouches too—completely cleaned out.
That was when he finally understood.
That Konoha brat who had "let him live"? He had stripped every coin and supply from their bodies before letting Takahashi crawl away.
Takahashi clenched his fists, tears stinging his eyes. Between grief, humiliation, and exhaustion, he could barely keep walking.
Still, step by step, he dragged himself back toward Sunagakure.
Penniless, Takahashi had no choice but to beg along the roadside, inching his way back to Sunagakure.
It wasn't that he hadn't considered robbery like a bandit, but he lacked the experience—and more importantly, he feared that using Sunagakure's jutsu would draw the attention of Konoha shinobi. If a lone genin like him were discovered, his end would be swift and ugly.
Luckily, his appearance worked in his favor. With the face of a ten-year-old child, people were far more willing to toss him scraps. Piece by piece, coin by coin, he managed to survive the journey. After several grueling days, he finally staggered back to the Hidden Sand.
The moment he returned, he reported everything he knew to Sunagakure's higher-ups.
But the truth was—he didn't know much. From the very beginning, he had barely laid eyes on Nan before falling victim to the boy's genjutsu.
Still, he painted Nan as a cunning and ruthless foe. According to him, Nan had used deception to split the squad apart, hunting them one by one. Only when Takahashi used his sensory ninjutsu did he realize the trap—but by then, it was already too late.
When he and Watanabe finally caught up with Nan's true body, the rest of their team was already dead.
And in the very next instant, Nan's genjutsu overwhelmed him. When he regained consciousness, he was the only survivor.
The council of Sunagakure was shaken. This mission had been deemed foolproof. Who could have imagined that an eight-man squad—led by one elite jōnin and one standard jōnin—would be utterly annihilated?
Nan wasn't just a troublesome medical ninja. He possessed monstrous combat ability as well.
A six-year-old child… killing an elite jōnin. Such a claim sounded absurd.
At first, Sunagakure's leaders dismissed it. They suspected hidden bodyguards—perhaps that Nan had not fought alone. Surely, he couldn't have done this single-handedly.
But when the corpses of the fallen shinobi were finally recovered, the wounds told a different story.
The two that Takahashi had witnessed firsthand had indeed been struck down by Nan's ninjutsu. As for the other five—each had been killed instantly, their vital points obliterated by overwhelming strength and piercing Lightning Release techniques.
Just as Takahashi had testified—Nan was a master of lightning-style ninjutsu.
Konoha had very few such shinobi. That fact alone lent weight to his account. In the end, they were forced to accept the unthinkable: this massacre truly had been the work of a single child.
From that moment on, Nan's name spread. He was no longer only famous within Konoha. In Sunagakure too, whispers began to circulate of a terrifying prodigy rising in the Leaf.