The simultaneous existence of multiple independent wills made it impossible to predict Danzo’s behavior through normal logic.
But at the same time, this also gave Kagami an opportunity to deal with Danzo.
After all, aside from Danzo himself, none of the other independent wills inside his body belonged to particularly skilled shinobi. The chances of them making a mistake were far greater than that of the sinister and cunning Danzo himself. Moreover, while these independent wills sometimes cooperated with one another, they also restrained and interfered with each other. They were far from completely united.
Therefore, no matter which one of them made a mistake, they would inevitably leave behind traces.
When that happened, Kagami could gather enough manpower to surround and capture Danzo, then recover the pair of Eternal Mangekyo Sharingan in Danzo’s eye sockets!
The only thing Kagami needed to watch out for was making sure he got to Danzo before Orochimaru did.
Because from what he knew of Orochimaru, there was absolutely no way Orochimaru would let Danzo’s nearly ’perfect’ body slip through his fingers—especially when that body also possessed the Eternal Mangekyo Sharingan Orochimaru had dreamed of obtaining!
And as long as Orochimaru was given enough time, he could prepare new sacrifices and perform the ’Impure World Reincarnation’ once again, summoning the souls of the First and Second Hokage back from the Pure Land.
After all, in the original timeline, Orochimaru had even managed to undo the ’Dead Demon Consuming Seal’ that the Third Hokage had cast on the First and Second at the cost of his own life. He had forcibly retrieved the First, Second, Third, and Fourth Hokage from the belly of the Shinigami and resurrected all four of them through the ’Impure World Reincarnation’ in one fell swoop, completely changing the course of the Fourth Shinobi World War.
After switching back to his Yin Release true body, Kagami sealed his Fire Release clone inside the storage scroll he carried with him. He then immediately left the sky fortress and rushed back toward the village.
But the moment he returned to the village, he immediately sensed that something was wrong with the atmosphere.
There were fully twice as many guards stationed along the outer walls as usual, and several reinforced sensory barriers that normally wouldn’t be activated lightly were all currently operational.
It took Kagami quite a bit of effort to avoid every guard and secretly slip back into the village.
After quietly returning to his principal’s office and replacing the shadow clone he had left behind, Kagami quickly sorted through the clone’s memories.
"The village reacted pretty quickly!"
Kagami walked over to the window of his office and gazed toward the Hokage Building in the distance.
According to the memories of the shadow clone that had remained in the office, the reason the village had strengthened its defenses was because the Third Hokage had recently led a large number of Konoha shinobi out of the village in a hurry.
And at a time like this, there was only one thing that could have prompted the Third Hokage to mobilize such a large force—Danzo secretly conducting his ’Bloodline Fusion Ritual’ outside the village.
"Paper can’t wrap up a fire forever. Looks like using a chakra transmission array made up of a large number of shinobi really is one of the worst possible ways to obtain chakra."
Kagami shook his head with a sigh.
In his view, Danzo had already gone to extraordinary lengths when selecting and transferring personnel in order to conceal his ’Bloodline Fusion Ritual.’ His secrecy measures had practically been pushed to the limit.
Yet even then, the village had quickly noticed that something was wrong.
It was clear that once too many people became involved, maintaining absolute secrecy was simply impossible.
This only further strengthened Kagami’s determination to complete his own ’Bloodline Fusion Ritual’ entirely by himself.
Only by doing so could he ensure that the ritual would neither be disturbed nor leaked to outsiders.
Resting his chin on one hand, Kagami thought to himself, "Learning the ’Yin Seal’ and the ’Eight Gates’ needs to be moved up the schedule as well."
The sooner he mastered the ’Yin Seal,’ the sooner he could begin accumulating chakra.
Ever since awakening the Tenseigan, the chakra reserves of Kagami’s Yin Release true body had been slowly increasing every single day.
After all these years, his chakra reserves had already far surpassed those of an ordinary shinobi. Therefore, his efficiency in accumulating chakra through the ’Yin Seal’ would be no worse than Tsunade’s, who possessed Senju blood—and might even surpass hers.
Once he mastered the ’Yin Seal,’ and allowed chakra to accumulate within it day after day, then perhaps by the time he was ready to perform his ’Bloodline Fusion Ritual,’ the amount of chakra stored inside his ’Yin Seal’ would already be enough to make up for a substantial portion of the chakra he still lacked.
As for the ’Eight Gates,’ he also needed to begin training in it as soon as possible.
That was because the forbidden technique known as the ’Eight Gates’ was different from ordinary forbidden techniques. Its practitioner had to temper their body relentlessly, day after day, constantly pushing beyond their physical limits before they could gradually advance to higher levels of mastery.
And the first six gates would be of practically no help to Kagami’s ’Bloodline Fusion Ritual.’
According to Kagami’s estimates, he would need to be capable of opening at least the Seventh Gate, the ’Gate of Wonder,’ or perhaps even the Eighth Gate, the ’Gate of Death,’ for it to play a decisive role during the final sprint of his ’Bloodline Fusion Ritual.’
Yet even Guy, who had trained relentlessly for more than ten years, might not currently possess the ability to open the Eighth Gate, the ’Gate of Death.’
Therefore, if Kagami didn’t begin training early enough, he could very well end up in an awkward situation where he had already finished developing clones of every chakra nature and completed every other preparation for the ’Bloodline Fusion Ritual,’ only to discover that his training was insufficient to open the Seventh or Eighth Gate.
If that happened, it would truly be embarrassing.
"Danzo, the ’Yin Seal,’ the ’Eight Gates,’ the Earth Release clone..."
Kagami stared absentmindedly out the window as he quietly muttered these words to himself.
What he was reciting were the several short-term objectives he had set for himself: hunt down Danzo, train in the ’Yin Seal’ and the ’Eight Gates,’ and develop his Earth Release clone.
Among them, he could learn the ’Eight Gates’ from Guy.
Given Kagami’s current status within the village, as well as his close relationship with Guy, there was a high chance Guy wouldn’t refuse if he asked. The village probably wouldn’t have any objections either.
The matter of the ’Yin Seal,’ however, was somewhat more troublesome.
Although Rei had already become Tsunade’s disciple, her own strength was still limited. And because the Byakugan kekkei genkai was particularly well suited to learning medical ninjutsu, Tsunade’s guidance of Rei had focused primarily on the field of medical ninjutsu.
But medical ninjutsu itself was an incredibly vast and profound field, encompassing everything from the structure of the human body and its organs and chakra pathways to medicines, poisons, and countless other areas. It simply wasn’t something that could be fully learned and mastered in just a year or two.
Therefore, Rei had yet to come into contact with Tsunade’s signature techniques such as the ’Yin Seal,’ ’Chakra Enhanced Strength,’ or even the ’Slug Summoning Contract.’
Moreover, the ’Yin Seal’ was one of Tsunade’s core secret techniques.
Under normal circumstances, techniques of this level were never casually passed on to anyone other than one’s own disciples. Even if Kagami offered extremely generous terms in exchange, Tsunade was unlikely to agree.
"Looks like I can only have Rei figure something out!"
With that thought in mind, Kagami prepared to make a trip to Konoha Hospital and discuss the matter with Rei, hoping she could find some way to obtain the secret scroll for the ’Yin Seal’ from her sensei.
But just as Kagami was about to leave, Shisui hurriedly rushed into the principal’s office and exclaimed,
"Senpai, something terrible has happened! Lord Hokage has defected!"