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The brief rest did not dispel the gloom hanging over the squad; instead, it deepened the sense of powerlessness stemming from the Third Kazekage's disappearance and the stark reality of the barren land. After replenishing a small amount of water and food, the "Sandstorm" squad once again plunged into the vast sea of sand, continuing their hopeless search mission.
Following the map markings and vague guidance from nomadic villagers, they arrived at an extremely remote area. It was far from any known trade routes or oases, filled only with bizarre, heavily wind-eroded rock pillars and bottomless ravines—a corner seemingly forgotten by the world. The air was dead silent; even the sandstorms seemed to bypass the area, leaving behind only an ancient desolation.
"This damn place... are we really going to find any clues here?" Lucado couldn't help but complain, tapping the iron-hard rock wall beside him with a kunai.
"Follow orders, stop talking nonsense," Captain Iryō snapped, but his brow was also tightly furrowed. The environment here was strangely harsh, making the search extremely difficult.
"Let me handle it." Sayo stepped forward. In this complex terrain, his "Spider" puppets were far more efficient than a human search. He formed hand seals, summoning three spiders and controlling them like agile rock goats to swiftly enter the crisscrossing rock fissures and deep caves, transmitting real-time internal images back.
The search process was long and tedious. Most caves were empty, containing only years of accumulated dust and occasional animal skeletons. Just as even Sayo began to feel this was a waste of energy, one of the spiders that had penetrated the deepest into a narrow rock fissure suddenly transmitted an extremely abnormal signal.
It wasn't an image, but feedback of a strong energy fluctuation—an energy that was pure, ancient, yet carried an unspeakable sense of oppression, completely different from the chakra he was familiar with.
Sayo's heart jolted. He focused all his concentration on that specific spider. Through the unit's fragile sensing system, he "saw" a small, irregular piece of matter half-buried in the sand at the end of the fissure. Its material was unknown—neither metal nor wood—and its color was dark. Yet, its surface was naturally inscribed with incredibly complex patterns, seemingly containing the ultimate truths of heaven and earth. That strange energy fluctuation was emanating precisely from it.
"Did you find anything?" Iryō noticed Sayo's sudden stillness and immediately asked.
Sayo made a decision instantly. The aura emanating from this object was too extraordinary and too unknown. He absolutely could not expose it before figuring out what it was. He forcibly suppressed the turmoil in his heart, his face returning to a mask of calm, and shook his head: "Nothing. The fissure ended in a collapse. Just some strange rock structures—the spider couldn't go any further."
Iryō gave him a scrutinizing look, seemingly sensing a hint of concealment, but ultimately chose to trust the boy and nodded: "Continue searching the other sectors."
Sayo secretly manipulated the spider, carefully using its slender forelimbs to dig the fragment out of the sand, securely fastening it to the unit's abdomen before quietly beginning the return journey. Throughout the entire process, his heart was pounding. His engineering intuition told him he had discovered something incredible.
That night, the squad camped in a rock cave sheltered from the wind. Xu and Lucado quickly fell into a deep sleep from exhaustion, while Captain Iryō stood guard at the entrance. Sayo used the excuse of needing to perform maintenance on his puppets and went alone to a corner deep inside the cave.
He summoned the spider and retrieved the fragment. Holding it in his hand, the strange energy sensation became even clearer. It wasn't violent, but it was unfathomably deep, as if connected to some vast, boundless source. Just by holding it, Sayo felt that his affinity for Natural Energy (Senjutsu Chakra) seemed to vibrate in sympathy.
What exactly is this?
Suddenly, the Shukaku's grumbling, filled with resentment, flashed through his mind like lightning:
"It's all that damned woman... the woman from outside the heavens! Ōtsutsuki Kaguya!""She planted a damned tree on this land! That tree frantically absorbed the energy of the entire world!"
Ancient secrets. The Divine Tree (Shinju). Devouring the world's energy. The war between the Six Paths Sage and Kaguya that turned heaven and earth upside down.
Could it be that the fragment in his hand, radiating pure yet immensely vast energy fluctuations, was a relic of that distant era? A shard of the Divine Tree that once drained the lifeblood of the Land of Wind, or perhaps a fragment of an ancient sealing stone?
This conjecture made Sayo's hand tremble. If this were true, the value of this fragment was immeasurable. The natural energy it contained might be the key to unlocking the true potential of his Body Tempering Furnace, or even realizing his grand ambitions to terraform the desert.
He carefully wrapped the fragment layer by layer using a specialized sealing scroll, isolating its energy fluctuations, and then hid it close to his body. This matter could not be known by another soul. He understood the fundamental law of the shinobi world: possessing a treasure without the power to defend it invites only disaster.
He looked out at the boundless starry sky outside the cave, waves surging in his heart. The mission to search for the Kazekage seemed futile, yet it had led him to a key that might originate from the world's essence.
The path ahead seemed to have gained another unknown yet powerful possibility.
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