After a sorrowful cry, the spinning speed of the three tomoe in Shinichi's eyes gradually slowed down, while tears continued to flow out of his, dripping on Kurumi's cold body.

Seeing the scene from a distance, Zetsu said with some regret, "Unfortunately, it still didn't succeed!" ​​

However, the masked man wasn't disappointed with the result, "Don't worry…"

Zetsu asked the masked man, "But your plan failed, didn't it?"

"This is just the beginning." With a cold chuckle, the masked man said funnily, "Do you think Uchiha Shinichi will let go of the Root ninja who killed the girl?"

Zetsu shook his head.

This was obvious. Anyone who encounters such a thing won't let go of the murderer, not to mention Shinichi is an Uchiha.

And being the straight forwards person he is, he might not even be able to figure out the complexity of the situation.

Then the Masked man asked with a smirk, "And do you think Shimura Danzo will hand over the Root ninja?"

Zetsu shook his head negatively.

With Shimura Danzo's character, even if the Root ninja didn't actually kill the girl, he wouldn't hand over his men. For Danzo, to agree to hand over the culprit would actually mean to bow to the Uchiha Clan, which is something he won't do even if it means death.

As if to realize what might happen in that case, Zetsu nodded, "No wonder you wanted me to let the Root ninja escape!" as he talked, Zetsu suddenly became anxious, "But wouldn't Danzo notice our involvement if the root ninja reports the situation to him?"

To this, the masked man stated indifferently, "They have already noticed us a long time ago."

During the Kyuubi's rebellion, the masked-man fought against Yondaime Hokage of Konoha, and that fight left a lot of traces in the surroundings, so the Konoha advisors have long since noticed that someone was manipulating the whole incident by hiding in the Darkness.

It's just that they can't actually confirm whether this man behind the scenes was a shinobi hidden within the Uchiha Clan of Konoha or some third party outside the village.

As for Danzo's opinion on this?

Shimura Danzo didn't conceal his malice against the Uchiha clan for a very long time, so even if he knows that it might just be a third party outside the village, he wouldn't mind putting the blame of it all on the Konoha's very own Uchiha Clan, after all this would give him an excuse to target them!

At this time Zetsu asked while tilting his head to the side, "Then what are we going to do now?"

"Hahaha… wait for the show!" With a chuckle, the masked-man said jokingly, "The seed of hatred that had been sowed into Uchiha Shinichi's heart has sprouted, witnessing Kurumi's death was all the water the sprout needed, not being unable to exact revenge for her death would be the manure and fertilizer, and finally he will bear the fruit of disappointment!"

Zetsu asked in an impressive voice, "Then what will he do with that fruit?"

"He will hate! Hate Danzo, hate Konoha, hate Uchiha, and hate the world itself! The disappointment with the world will finally give birth to the Mangekyou and that will be the fruit we will reap!" the masked man said with surety as if he had already anticipated the future.

Zetsu asked with wonder, "Will the fruit be tasty?"

"That's something we will find out soon enough!"

Zetsu turned to look towards Uchiha Shinichi who was walking towards the village holding Kurumi's cold body and asked casually, "But what happens if he isn't able to awaken Mangekyou Sharingan? I think you are wasting too much time on him."

The Masked-man looked towards Shinichi's departing back and murmured with coldness in his eyes, "A good and useful chess piece is always worth the effort."

…

Land of Wind

In the desert with no end in sight, Kuroto continued walking while silently observing the Caravan of the Roran Survivors from a distance.

It has already been 10 days since the time he sneaked out of the Konoha Village.

According to his estimates, it would take around 6 days more to successfully escort them to the Land of Rain, and then he would use the remaining 4 days to return to Konoha as fast as possible.

'Fortunately, Shisui agreed to cover for my absence for 20 days!' – thought Kuroto as he continued to watch the surroundings.

Just then an Eagle cry sounded from a distance!

Kuroto paused and turned over towards the direction of the sound and saw an eagle hovering in the sky. From its flight path, it seemed to be searching for something.

Obviously, this Eagle is no ordinary bird, but a trained summoned beast.

Watching the Eagle from the distance, Kuroto's lips curled into a smirk under the mask as he muttered, "As expected of one of the great Shinobi Village, Sand Village's reaction speed isn't any slow either, already discovered our tracks!"

Shaking his head helplessly, he didn't do any unnecessary actions and just stood quietly on his spot, seemed to be waiting for someone.

Without much delay, a figure appeared in front of Kuroto and knelt on one knee respectfully, and spoke with a mechanical tone, "Kuroto-Sama, a four-men team of Sand Village is chasing!"

This person is none other than the Sandaime Kazekage puppet.

Over the past few days, since he was following behind the Roran Survivors, Kuroto took advantage of that time to temporarily complete a fusion seal with the Ryuumyaku, as such he became the Ryuumyaku's Jinchuriki.

Since then, Kuroto has deeply realized that the Ryuumyaku Chakra is vastly different from the ordinary.

Firstly, since the chakra of the Ryuumyaku contains a large proportion of the energy from the ley lines, which is pure natural Energy, therefore its density is significantly higher, which is not something easy to use by ordinary shinobi.

Because of this Kuroto can't directly use the Ryuumyaku Chakra to fuse it with the Tenseigan, so whenever he wants to use the Ryuumyaku Chakra, he has to first refine it to avoid the corrosion of natural energy.

And it takes some time to refine the Ryuumyaku Chakra into Tenseigan Chakra.

Secondly, Kuroto discovered that the Ryuumyaku has an instinctive self-healing ability, it was probably because the intention of the first generation 'Origin' was to heal itself, therefore without even a need for medical treatment Kuroto's wounds will now heal much faster.

Finally, since Ryuumyaku has no resentment towards the humans; like that of the nine-tailed beasts, and because of its weak sentience, taming it is much easier, especially for Kuroto with the Tenseigan.

After refining a large amount of Tenseigan Chakra, the first thing he did was to infuse it into the Kazekage Puppet.

Kuroto wanted to try and see if using a large amount of Chakra can somehow improve the self-consciousness of the puppet.

Although the soul of the original Kazekage didn't appear much to Kuroto's disappointment, the autonomy of the puppet still improved, as a sense of self; started to develop in it.

And not long after, the puppet even became capable of speech which came as an unexpected surprise.

Kuroto has already completely studied the Kazekage puppet when he obtained it, and back then he noticed that the voice box in it has been removed by Sasori, therefore Kuroto was much surprised because of the speech ability.

In curiosity, he obviously checked what could be the cause of it?

So, observing it carefully with the Tenseigan, he discovered that the Kazekage puppet used the chakra to stimulate the shape of the voice box that gave the puppet speech ability, but because of missing the original organ, the tone of voice is still mechanical.

If it was previously, Kuroto would obviously not allow such waste of Chakra, but now that he has Ryuumyaku as an artificial tailed beast, he isn't that much troubled with a little waste of chakra for convenience's sake.

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Read up to Chapter - 218 on P.a.t.r.e.o.n. : p-atreon.com/Milta_translations