148 -=Manas Cooper=-

In a forest on the border of Yugakure... which is the village of hot waters, in case you didn't know... which is northeast of Konoha...

two ninjas could be seen jumping from tree to tree

their forehead protector showed the symbol of one small cloud close to two big clouds that connected to each other.

the symbol of Kumogakure

*Swish* *Swish*

They kept advancing in silence until they saw a shoreline

the one on the right made some hand signs to the other one, using the Kumo Anbu sign language, to pass on his orders

wich translated, would be more like this:

"You, here wait, me go boat mission"

No, seriously, their sign language is meant for missions and efficiency, not a casual conversation

the second shinobi nodded and jumped away, to find a hiding place while the one who was presumably the captain went along the shore to a nearby boat, where he promptly sneak into and began to hide

sneaking aboard was easy... almost felt too easy actually...

almost

"Is everything ready?" The captain asked one of his subordinates

"Yes captain, we got everything" He answered

The captain smirked, something the Kumo ninja couldn't see as he was hiding, and said

"Okay, let's set sail then" He said

he looked around for a bit, having his gaze linger at the Kumo ninja's hiding spot for barely longer than a second before he went on to his chamber

the boat left shortly after

in the dead silence of the forest, the other ninja watched as his teammate left, since he would need to add that to his report later on

while still hiding, he only had the sound of his breathing to hear... nothing more, nothing less

him not noticing anything wrong, was proof of his inexperience with forests, as the forest is only truly silent, while a predator is around

-=during the night=-

camping while remaining undercover is a hard task, that's for sure, especially trying to remain warm without a fireplace

it's actually incredible how Uzushio had one of the best strategical advantages to defend itself, since there was no land connecting it to the mainland, they only had to keep watch of shores for enemy camps, and boats... both of which they could do from afar, in the water of the... unnamed ocean? seriously, why doesn't that have a name?

Anyway

the ninja was writing down his report ahead of time while he was alone because even trained ninjas get bored easily while keeping still for a long time

the lack of nature relates noises that would make any experienced ninja sweat bullets made the inexperience one feel bored out of his mind

he's been watching the horizon and the forest for hours, without any kind of movement, and though this specific mission only needs him to wait for his partner, there is a catch... in case the other ninja gets captured he needs to give back some level of information for this mission to not be completely useless

yet his last reports, if done exactly as he wished to, would be like

hour 8 nothing is moving, the horizon is filled with boredom and this forest seems dead

*rustle*

The sound of something passing through the nearby bushes brought him out of his daze

he stared at the said bush until he saw something come out of it... a rat... again

in the last few hours he saw many rats walk out of that bush... it's probably the entrance of their hiding place, yet he didn't see any rat going back yet...

while he missed over useless thoughts just to kill his boredom he saw the ambient in front of him blur, and before he could do anything he fell asleep

what he didn't know was that at a tree above his hiding spot there was someone else writing a report in advance

"As expected... after roughly 10 hours of illusion the subject begun to notice the patterned parts of it, as the rat... yet the distortion of time to make him feel like 10 hours were like 8 went smoothly..."

*Writing noises*

The figure of a fairly short man with a red suit could be seen writing as he sat at the branch of a tree, he had short black hair and round glasses on his face, masking his eyes that looked at the sleeping ninja coldly

his pen suddenly stopped as soon as he finished his report and jumped down in front of the ninja

"Now then... what will be our next experiment?" he asked himself with a smirk

meet Cooper, aka Manas of the old [Loki] skill

It's been a few days since Rimuru pulled out his stunt with team 7, and in that time he 'Awoke' from his evolution

what was born of that simple decision of Rimuru, of naming a skill just because he could, gave birth to something else

different from Manas:Karin who had her whole personality based on someone's else personality, especially the traits of Uzumaki Karin, Cooper was an amalgamation of different egos being fused, Karin took a bit to complete the fusion of just 2, so you can imagine why Cooper took WAY longer

but in a fusion of wills, only the strongest traits survive, and between all the personalities that fused together to make Cooper's personality, the part that stood out the most was coldness

by viewing every human or non-human living being as nothing more than complex little puzzles that he wanted to solve, Cooper managed to get himself the position of the head researcher of Uzushio in mere days

like an Orochimaru, but without the bad parts, and being a being created from an illusion skill, he was better at them than Rimuru himself, the owner of said skill

and albeit he couldn't replicate something like the Kurama clan's kekkei genkai of turning illusion into reality, it was a piece of cake for him to make illusions that made the Tsukuyomi world seem like nothing

An illusion master, who views living beings as nothing but test subjects, and has untold amounts of power!

yet, when you actually look into it, it seems that the cold personality doesn't apply o everyone...

-=Uzushiogakure, minutes later=-

Moving from land to Uzushio is by no means... human means, an easy task, yet all of Rimuru's manas can teleport, such a convenient skill that you cannot say every use this skill has

After throwing the captured ninja inside a prison cell, Cooper left the building with a smile on his face

looking around himself always filled him with pride

Uzushiogakure, a formerly dead land... brimming with life and he is part of the reason for it

okay, Rimuru did all the work, but he isn't actively helping the city develop as Cooper is

which makes him happy, not being just a part of Rimuru but his own self, like Karin or Ceres, he would never betray his creator, yet it didn't mean he couldn't live his own life

his casual daydream was interrupted by a swirl of papers forming beside him

"What is the matter Angel san?" He asked with a weird tone

Konan is not by any means a hidden part of Uzushio, yet she dislikes being called angel, for reasons that would surprise many

being unable to help her people, and especially her friend, and having to depend on Rimuru to spare them all was not something nice to feel...

anyway

"Cooper, your report is overdue by 2 hours already" the paper clone of Konan said in a flat tone

It's actually good that her paper clones cannot feel headaches, because Cooper would bring them one too many headaches, his obnoxious habit of locking himself with some prisoner for hours straight made him quite clumsy at handling schedules

"I'm sorry, I was testing a new theory about the human nervous system and lost my notion of time, did you know that if you stimulate certain nerves of a human they will-"

"I don't need to know, just report your mission as quickly as you can" The paper clone interrupted him as it began to disperse into papers again

"...huh, I wonder about the practical uses of being made of paper..." He said to no one as he walked slowly towards the tower at the center of Uzushio, where Konan was at dealing with her paperwork

Quite frankly, his work is not very needed right now, since Uzushio doesn't have much to search for, since there is an imminent war about to happen, yet some of his experiments, especially the ones involving heavy brainwashing induced by illusions revealed some interesting information from some 'Volunteers' of Kumo, Iwa, and Kiri

it seems like the 3 big villages felt threatened by Uzushio making a comeback decades later, yet the fact that with the amount estimated of surviving Uzumakis, the village could not be composed solely of their clan made it an easy decision to destroy it again, and hoping t catch one or two Uzumakis that were bound to live there, or else no one could live past even the weakest seals that would still be active so much time latter

yet the fact that no matter how many scouts any of the villages sent, they never came back unnerved them quite a bit

their plan is still not complete, yet negotiations between the 3 villages are rather hot at the moment, with the kages not agreeing on how to distribute their spoils of war...

which is a very good thing, the longer those 3 fight between each other, the longer Karin has to upgrade the seals around Uzushio, and The longer Cooper can study humans and their reaction to multiple types of illusion-induced stimulus and their plethora of effects

The longer Konan and Nagato can plan a perfect defense strategy and the longer those 3 kages have to live

yes, turns out... the major oversight of that triforce of idiots is that they know nothing about the current leaders of Uzushio

Nagato and Konan are not public figures, or at least weren't during their Akatsuki times, Karin, Cooper, Touka, and Blizzard are all one scarier than the other, enemies they never heard about, because they have a past of leaving behind 0 witnesses of their feats, with team 7 being the sole exception

and that also is ignoring that albeit out of practice, Nagato still has bloodline abilities like adamantine chains, mind's eye, and insane chakra reserves that are far bigger now that he doesn't have a rinnegan to sustain permanently... and even THAT is ignoring the fact that Rimuru exists, prooving that, as soon as those 3 villages attack Uzushio, they are going down

which is an incredibly scary thought to have... 3 'great' ninja villages are about to doom themselves and they don't even know it

Ironic how the villages that caused the original Uzushiogakure to be destroyed would be destroyed by another Uzushio...

and even now, the only reason that the village is preparing for war, isn't out of fear of being destroyed, as much as it is fear of destroying everything around it

with the seal barrier that Karin constantly improves daily... it's nearly impossible for a single individual to break into the village unless someone is at KAGE level, they can't put a dent in that barrier

the only possible problem would be bijuus and their bijuudamas, which are the only attack they are certain that can go through

and all of that only makes you wonder why Rimuru didn't wait for Kaguya to lose and world peace to become a thing to only then make that damn village... he can be many things, but he's definitely a bad planner