Chapter 44: Escaping the Caged Bird Curse Seal
Sand Ninja Village, Land of Wind.
The Third Kazekage had been missing for some time. During this period, Sand Ninja sent out a large number of Ninja, but found no news about the Third Kazekage. However, as the Kage of a village, disappearing without a trace for such a long time most likely meant he had been killed.
Otherwise, the Third Kazekage would have sent a message back to the village no matter what. As the supreme leader of the village, he should know what his prolonged absence without communication meant for Sand Ninja Village.
At the highest council meeting of Sand Ninja Village, regarding the Third Kazekage's disappearance, the elders and heads of various departments in Sand Ninja Village had discussed it countless times; they even invited the long-retired elders Ebizo and Chiyo, but still couldn't come up with a definite plan.
During the meeting, Rasa, who had studied under the Third Kazekage, spoke, "Lord Third has been missing for two months. Now, not only can we not keep it from the Ninja below, but even the other great Ninja villages are inquiring about Lord Third's whereabouts. And according to information gathered by the Sand Ninja Anbu, that guy, the Third Raikage, seems to have some ideas about us."
Although the Land of Wind was barren, the Third Kazekage was ambitious and had accumulated many resources on the front lines of Sand Ninja Village. According to the Sand Ninja Anbu's intelligence, the Cloud Ninja were very likely to have ill intentions towards this area.
A Sand Ninja elder angrily retorted, "The Third Raikage? Is he seeing that Lord Third is not here, so he thinks he can treat us like soft persimmons?!"
Another elder said, "If it's that brute, then it's not worth worrying about. He didn't dare when Lord Third was here, but now that he's heard Lord Third is gone, he wants to step on our Sand Ninja Village, hmph!"
"Now we should be thinking about how to deal with the Cloud Ninja's invasion, not discussing irrelevant matters."
Chiyo lightly coughed, then spoke to everyone; although she had retired for a long time, as the wife of the First Hokage and the strongest puppeteer in Sand Ninja Village, her words still carried a lot of weight.
"Rasa, if the village were entrusted to you, would you have the confidence to protect Sand Ninja Village from enemy invasion?"
When they heard Chiyo's words, the people in the conference room were startled.
This was clearly preparing to choose Rasa as the Fourth Kazekage. How could such a big decision be made so easily? Even if Chiyo was the wife of the First Hokage, she couldn't ignore their opinions, could she?
Immediately, someone wanted to speak up and oppose Chiyo's intention to select Rasa as the Fourth Kazekage.
Regarding the choice of Kazekage, these elders of Sand Ninja Village each had their own ideas. Rasa had only trained with the Third Hokage for a period of time. Although he learned Magnet Release, he was not taken as a disciple by the Third Hokage.
"Elder Chiyo..."
"If any of you can repel the Third Raikage and protect the village, then you can become the Fourth Hokage. To become Kazekage, the merit of protecting the village is essential."
Chiyo spoke slowly in her aged voice, then scanned the people seated around the conference table; but under her gaze, everyone except Rasa involuntarily averted their eyes.
After all, the opponent was that Third Raikage, a guy rumored to be able to suppress the Eight-Tails by himself.
Even if they privately called him a muscle-bound brute, they had to admit the brute's strength.
"I am willing to stop the Cloud Ninja's invasion, Elder Chiyo!"
Rasa stood up and said solemnly, "However, I am not doing it for the position of Kazekage, but to protect Sand Ninja Village."
Chiyo nodded and said, "Then I'll leave it to you."
The disappearance of the Third Kazekage was a heavy blow to Sand Ninja Village, causing a lack of high-level combat power and strong emotions among the Ninja below; although Chiyo had not managed village affairs for a long time, her old eyes were not dim.
Currently, in Sand Ninja Village, only Rasa and Yakura, these two young Ninja, could shoulder the heavy responsibility. However, although Yakura's strength was great, her political awareness was too low.
Compared to the turmoil in Sand Ninja Village, Konoha's internal situation was calm, but the border war was escalating.
In the past, there would still be escort missions passing through the Land of Fire, Land of Grass, and Land of Stone, but now all escort missions had stopped.
At the same time, Konoha made large purchases of strategic materials such as Kunai, Shuriken, and Exploding Tags, causing the prices of weapons in the village's Ninja tool shops to increase by 20%.
This price increase in Ninja tool shops hit Chunin and Genin the hardest, as they didn't have many Ninjutsu and their primary means of killing were Shuriken, Kunai, and Exploding Tags.
Now that prices had increased so much, the number of weapons they could purchase had significantly decreased.
If they went to the battlefield like this, they might be killed at a crucial moment due to an insufficient number of Shuriken.
Even Hyuga Mirai received a mandatory mission: he had to hand in ten Healing Tags every day, which counted as one wartime B-rank mission every two days.
It should be noted that Hyuga Mirai held a very special position in Konoha Hospital, with power equivalent to an associate director, but he didn't have to work.
But this time, even he was given a mandatory mission, which showed the determination of the Konoha High-Level Executives and the Third Hokage.
For this, Hyuga Mirai had no choice but to send out two fewer Shadow Clones to complete the village's mission. However, he also used this as an excuse to decline Hyuga Kiyomi and Kurenai Yuhi's request to train together.
Konoha Hospital Laboratory
Hyuga Mirai stared intently at the gene fusion in the instrument. The current fusion rate had reached 87%, which had met the standard for making injections, but Hyuga Mirai still wanted to wait until 100% before injecting.
The Shadow Clone scratched his head and said, "This is already the optimized calculation result. It seems Senju Hashirama's genes are still too powerful. If you, the main body, could get some of Tsunade's genes and compare them to research a slightly weaker one, perhaps we could guarantee 100% fusion success."
Hyuga Mirai glanced at the Shadow Clone and said, "The person isn't in Konoha anymore, what's the point of saying this now? Recalculate it. If it doesn't work, just like Orochimaru, directly remove parts of the genes."
Time was pressing, and even Hyuga Mirai's main body came to the laboratory to help. If it were peacetime, he could slowly experiment.
But now, Hyuga Mirai could be dispatched by Hiruzen Sarutobi to the border for aid at any time, which forced Hyuga Mirai to complete the research as quickly as possible.
Subsequently, after multiple repeated calculations and experiments by Hyuga Mirai's main body and Shadow Clones, the fusion rate was finally increased to 96%.
Seeing this result, the Shadow Clone couldn't help but say, "Relying on the Chakra accumulated in the Yin Seal, it should still be able to increase by 1% or 2%. This is already the limit."
The Yin Seal was a very similar Sealing Jutsu developed by Hyuga Mirai based on Tsunade's Yin Seal principle; however, this Sealing Jutsu's passive ability was greater than its active one, sealing Yang Release Chakra in all of Hyuga Mirai's acupoints.
This was to slowly nourish the body cells using Yang Release Chakra, thereby enhancing Hyuga Mirai's physical fitness.
However, the human body has so many acupoints. It took Hyuga Mirai nearly two years to only activate the acupoints around his digestive organs, improving his digestive ability and accelerating the recovery of his physical energy.
"That's all we can do. If we remove some genetic characteristics of the hashirama cells, it just doesn't feel complete, and there's no difference from Orochimaru's test subjects."
Hyuga Mirai shook his head and said. Then he took an injection from the Shadow Clone and injected it directly near his chest.
One injection every three days, a total of five injections over twelve days, were needed to completely successfully modify his gene sequence.
After the first three injections, Hyuga Mirai would lose his Byakugan, but the last two injections would give him a perfect Byakugan.
"Finally, I can get rid of this ugly mark."
Hyuga Mirai looked at his forehead in the mirror, and the corners of his mouth curved slightly upwards.
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