Chapter 12

After treating Hyuga Kagami's wounds, Anko, fully aware of their precarious situation, didn't say much more. She quietly returned to her own room.

Hyuga Kagami lay on his bed, carefully thinking over everything that had happened that day.

There was no doubt about it—the mission was a trap. And the Hidden Sand Village had clearly taken part. If it hadn't been for Sasori's interference, Kagami would have likely faced a Sand assassination squad.

And possibly, at the most critical moment, even his own captain, Mitsui Nakaichi, might have turned on him.

As for why the Hidden Sand got involved in Konoha's internal purge, Kagami didn't have to think long to understand. The Fourth Kazekage had only ascended quickly due to the mysterious disappearance of the Third Kazekage.

Without the pressure of war, the Fourth Kazekage would naturally seek to weaken the lingering influence of his predecessor. Thus, the Sand Village also had a pressing need to cleanse its own ranks—even more so than Konoha.

Add to that Sand's post-war desire to ally with Konoha.

This explained why they collaborated in Konoha's cleansing operation. The top brass of both villages had likely struck some kind of agreement—mutually eliminating each other's expendables.

It spared both sides the pain of killing their own comrades, and provided a convenient scapegoat in case of any slip-ups.

With that realization, Kagami also understood that even if Danzo was spearheading the purge, the Third Hokage and other senior leaders were likely aware, if not directly complicit.

There was no way Danzo could've orchestrated something so significant with the Sand Village on his own.

The thought that so many had been coldly abandoned by the village filled Kagami with both shock and fury.

Ninety percent of those purged were innocent. Only a handful had actually participated in Orochimaru's human experiments. Even fewer were involved in any core projects—most, like Kagami, were merely tangentially involved in minor testing.

The truly bloody and cruel experiments were almost entirely handled by Orochimaru himself, and access was extremely limited. Kagami himself had never even been qualified to witness those.

This wasn't him shirking responsibility. The reality was that very few in the village had the skills to conduct complex human experimentation. Aside from Orochimaru, practically no one else could manage it.

"Why did the village go so far this time? What are they really trying to cover up?"

The more Kagami thought about it, the more uneasy he felt. The village leaders couldn't be unaware that their purge would harm many innocents, yet they had gone through with it anyway. There had to be some deeper reason Kagami wasn't seeing yet.

He considered Orochimaru's sudden defection, and Danzo's uncharacteristically passive stance, despite his long-standing cooperation with Orochimaru.

Perhaps Orochimaru had done something so monstrous, so enraging, that the village leadership had been driven into a near-hysterical need for retribution.

Regardless of the cause, the purge had begun. Kagami had to set aside the bigger picture and focus on the immediate threats.

The nearest threat was clearly the purge itself.

Now that it was underway, the village wouldn't stop halfway. Even if Kagami escaped this attempt, there would be others, each more severe than the last.

Then there was Sasori.

The Third Kazekage was once dubbed the strongest Kazekage in history, yet he had silently fallen into Sasori's hands. That spoke volumes about Sasori's skill in ambush and assassination.

Now that they were enemies, Kagami had to constantly watch his back against Sasori's schemes.

But the most pressing issue was how the village would respond to Mitsui Nakaichi's death. If they suspected Kagami had orchestrated it, then his only option would be defection.

"I just hope that performance I put on was convincing enough."

Having the Third Kazekage puppet impersonate a wandering rogue ninja had been a smart move. Because of the war, there were many such rogues scattered across the lands. Running into one near a poorly monitored border wasn't unusual.

What really sold the act, though, was that the two suspicious team captains at the outpost had witnessed the rogue ninja—actually the disguised Kazekage puppet—and even fought it briefly.

That added much-needed credibility to Kagami's version of events.

The next day, during a lull in activity, Kagami took the opportunity to retrieve the Kazekage puppet hidden nearby and sealed it into a scroll for safekeeping.

The outpost was critically understaffed now.

Only four ninja remained, including Kagami and Anko—both injured. It was likely the village would send reinforcements soon. In fact, they could already be en route.

And if the support team included sensory-type ninja, leaving the Kazekage puppet roaming nearby would be a major risk.

Ultimately, the puppet was just too conspicuous.

Even someone as reckless as Sasori didn't use it casually. If Kagami were caught with it, not only would he lose a powerful trump card, he'd have no way of explaining its presence.

The Third Kazekage may have been dead, but he had once been the face of the Hidden Sand. Just to preserve their prestige, the Sand Village would stop at nothing to recover his puppet and eliminate its possessor.

Kagami, already marked for elimination by his own village, didn't want to provoke the Sand as well.

Fortunately, only two people knew that the Third Kazekage had been turned into a puppet: Kagami and Sasori. And Sasori, being the one who created it, certainly wouldn't publicize that fact.

Given Sasori's personality, he was probably focused on reclaiming the puppet from Kagami. As long as Kagami didn't make any mistakes, this secret would remain buried for now.

Over the next few days, things remained calm.

Using this rare window of peace, Kagami shut himself in and began researching how to control puppets using his Tenseigan.

Through repeated trials, he discovered that a puppet's flexibility and responsiveness were entirely dependent on the amount of Tenseigan chakra he infused into it. The more chakra, the more agile it became.

Kagami didn't have much knowledge of puppets.

He wasn't sure if the Kazekage puppet was simply an advanced model, but just activating it required half his chakra to sustain. If he wanted it to use Magnet Release techniques, it would consume two-thirds of his chakra.

In other words, with the puppet active, Kagami would only have about half his normal chakra left—barely the level of a skilled Chunin.

Kagami even tried pouring all his chakra into the puppet to see if it would gain some form of autonomous consciousness.

But the results were disappointing.

Whether due to his limited chakra reserves or other unknown factors, the puppet showed no sign of gaining sentience—just a slight increase in fluidity.

Still, Kagami had learned to manage his expectations. He no longer compared everything to the feats of Otsutsuki Toneri from his memories. The setback didn't crush him. It just left him a little irritated...