章 69: Chapter 70
Finding Hiruko wasn't that big of a deal because he was still technically a Jōnin from Konoha who was sent to the Suna frontline when the war began.
Since then, he secretly kidnapped shinobi from Kumo, Kiri, Suna, and Iwa, all while leaving a shadow clone to not get suspected when he left the frontline.
Shikuro has been watching him since he started doing so, and I deemed him as a missing-nin but did not officially announce it, making him believe that what he has been doing was still unknown.
I knew that he got Steel Release from an Iwa shinobi since they had a whole clan capable of using it, Storm Release from Kumo since they also had a clan with this bloodline, Swift Release by killing the only known user from Suna who did a lot for them during the Second Shinobi World War, and apparently Dark Release from someone within Kiri, although I didn't know who it was.
But I wouldn't complain since he would help me, albeit unknowingly, get my hands on two new 'Kekkei Genkai' which limits are still unknown.
I was not interested in making him a subordinate of mine, but I felt like giving him as a puppet for Sasori would be interesting, and funny enough, he shared the same name as the most loved and used puppet of Sasori in the canon.
As such, I was now walking back inside the camp followed by Sasori while my clone who had the One-Tail sealed inside him got back to Konoha.
Something that Shikuro told me was that Hiruko never participated in a single battle against Suna and instead sent his clone into the fray when frictions occurred.
He stayed hidden inside the camp by taking the appearance of another Jōnin from the village while inflicting injuries on himself that allowed him to stay in the healing ward of the camp, and kept on doing so by switching his appearance and type of wounds every time he was 'healed'.
Eventually standing in front of the healing ward, we were welcomed by a medical-nin who wondered why I was here right now.
"Greetings, Hokage-sama." a man who was only wearing white clothing said as he politely bowed
"I came to see the injured shinobi and help those with the most troublesome wounds along with a student of mine." I replied as I waved my hand so he would stand back up
His eyes shone with respect since it was a well-known fact that I also had great medical skills just like Tsunade so he promptly replied "It would be a pleasure for us to be helped by the Hokage himself!" before bringing us inside the large tent where all the wounded were laid in different beds with many medical-nin running around to support them
Once I appeared, I could sense one of the bedridden shinobi tenses up at the corner of the room but didn't move towards him directly and instead did as I previously declared as I started to help with healing those with the most devious wounds.
In the middle of working, I looked at Sasori and asked "Go and give those pills to everyone capable of biting them, it will boost their body's natural defenses and break down any known poison from Suna." as I gave him a box with a small note inside of it
When he read the note, he understood what my plan was and did as I asked by distributing the antidote pills to each patient while I was still helping.
When it was finally Hiruko's turn, and a few seconds after he swallowed the pill, Sasori shouted "Yuichi-sama, something weird is happening to this man!" with a panicked voice but I knew that his expression didn't match them at all since he was surely looking at Hiruko with a terrifying smile
As I barely finished healing someone, I hurriedly shifted my gaze between Hiruko and Sasori before asking "Did you just make him bite the pill?"
"Yes I did, and he started to convulse!" Sasori explained as I moved towards him and faked checking Hiruko's pulse while peering on his bloodstream with my Dōjutsu before declaring "He seems to be greatly allergic to the medication I gave him, a rare occurrence but still a possibility nonetheless." I said as the medical-nins around had their attention directed on the occurring crisis
"I need to be extremely focused to get rid of the antidote since it already blended with his blood with how fast-acting I made it, I need to bring him somewhere quieter." I suggested which was understood by everyone since it was possible to extract poison or foreign substances from the body by using chakra albeit it was extremely hard
"I understand, do you need help with moving him?" the woman who was leading the medical-nins asked but I shook my head as I said "No need for that, I have the perfect place." while Shiromari left my arm and transformed into a door that once opened gave access to a room within his body
As I carefully moved the bed where Hiruko was laying, I explained "Knock on the door if you need me, I will come back once I'm done."
"Yes, Hokage-sama." she politely replied as Sasori and I disappeared behind the door with the convulsing and bedridden Hiruko
"Are we really inside that chameleon?" Sasori asked as he couldn't believe that a room would be inside Shiromari
"It's actually an enormous mansion, this room is just one among many others." I explained as I dropped Hiruko without caring about his well-being now that we were alone
"And nobody can hear us too." I added before canceling Hiruko's transformation, revealing a white-haired man with red eyes and a somewhat aged face with a terrified expression as he couldn't move his body at all now that the convulsion was over
I then looked at Sasori and saw his weird-looking expression so I inquired "You got something to say?"
"Couldn't we just have killed him instead of using such a roundabout way?" he asked as he glanced at the now immobilized Hiruko
"First of all, killing someone inside of the healing ward would make them think that I am a psychopath even if I later explained that he was a missing-nin... Second, this man is a coward, and a coward is extremely cautious which meant that in case I told them about him beforehand, they could have given us away because of sheer nervousness." I explained to the cold-blooded teen in front of me who calmly listened
"By doing it this way, I made him believe that my reason for coming was truly to help the medical-nins while sending you to give the recent pills I developed to everyone also lowered his vigilance when his turn came since it didn't have any difference appearance-wise." I finished explaining before looking back at the man I talked about
"Let's not waste time." I said as I started laying my hand on Hiruko's forehead before exclaiming "Suijin." making my right eye glint while his body began to painfully liquify although he couldn't express himself as the paralysis prevented him from screaming
"Thanks for the treat." I said as I closed my eyes for a few seconds once I absorbed everything before turning towards Sasori who seemed weirded out by what just happened
"What?" I asked as he took a few steps back from me
"What, 'What'? You just transformed someone into some weird liquid and drank it with your right eye... I will never let you touch me, ever." he explained as he was now standing against the wall
"That's just my Dōjutsu... Now that I think about it, I think you might be the first one to see me using it so I don't know how weird it looks from an outsider's point of view." I said as I might also be freaked out by someone 'drinking' with his eye
"...But you don't need to worry, I won't do that to you, I think." I said which made him shudder "And you will be able to use his body later too, even though I absorbed him." I added which got back his interest since I told him what Hiruko was capable of doing
"In fact, I'm the only one who can bring his body back... Along with many other interesting shinobi." I declared as I remembered everyone relevant I absorbed and therefore sealed their soul within me
'Except for Hiruzen who I will never bring back to not get into trouble, and also Danzō who could technically be brought back by anyone since I don't have his soul, but he should not be able to remember what I did to him if he ever did' I thought as I was too young back then to absorb Danzō and had to carefully destroy every cell I found that belonged to him
Nevertheless, I then made a clone of the man that Hiruko impersonated, since he was already dead when he took his appearance, so he could live his life for a while.
"Won't your clone vanish or be found out once he gets attacked?" Sasori asked as he looked towards the clone who laid down in the medical bed
"My clone is capable of bleeding and can fake his injuries so no one will suspect him, as for the duration, as long as I'm not running out of chakra he won't vanish... I will just make him go on a mission where he will 'die' later on." I explained as I started to sit down and digest what I just absorbed
"We'll wait a little longer before going back since the operation I should have done would have needed more time. You can go to the first room on the right, the workshop, and repair your puppets in the meantime." I said before closing my eyes while Sasori nodded and left the room
Looking over what I ingested, I realized that Hiruko also learned a few intriguing techniques such as a Barrier Ninjutsu and a mind-controlling Juinjutsu.
The Barrier-Ninjutsu was extremely similar to the Fūma Clan's 'Curse Mandala' which made a barrier around one target that slowly constricted until the target gets crushed, while the Juinjutsu was called the 'Puppet Curse' which allowed full control of someone affected as if they were a puppet, but without the need of chakra threads.
They weren't useful for me but they could be taught to others which could get some people eager to learn them.
I know at least two guys who would like to learn the 'Puppet Curse' and one of them is currently next door.
And then came the 'Chimera Technique', truly a masterpiece of a Jutsu albeit it was extremely gross to use on yourself as Hiruko did.
It made me remember the dark and slimy impurities from those Chinese novels but instead of being expelled from the body, it was slowly crawling on you before infiltrating your skin, making you essentially ingest disgusting waste from a target before producing an excruciating pain, unlike Suijin which transformed my target into a transparent liquid that didn't give me any weird sensations.
But that wasn't the true essence of the technique as it was originally meant to combine different organisms into a single one bearing the characteristics of all organisms used, creating a synthetic body and therefore, a 'chimera'.
This was perfect for me since I could now combine the DNA I had from the five current lineages of Kaguya to make the perfect synthetic body for her.
Nevertheless, I didn't have the time to try the Dark and Swift Releases right now, but I was sure that Hiruko did not use them properly... Maybe it was a side effect of using the 'Chimera Technique' on yourself, or he just didn't have enough talent to achieve more.
'Let's fetch Sasori' I thought as I got up and left the room towards the workshop where I previously sent him
Knocking on the door before opening it, I was greeted by a bloodied Sasori with a heart in his hand while the body of Seno was emptied of most of his internal organs as I saw the guts hanging on the side, the lungs laying on the ground right beside the boy's feet, and something else was splattered on the wall but I couldn't discern what it was because of how messy it looked.
"Children and their new toys... You will clean everything up later alright? Or no dinner for you tonight." I jokingly said as I was slightly surprised that he had the required materials on him right now to build his human puppet
'Well, when you can carry hundreds of puppets I guess it's not weird from him to have everything useful to make and repair them all the time' I thought as he hid Seno's heart behind his back like it was something I shouldn't have seen
"We have to go back already?" he asked me as he tried to wipe off the blood on his hands
"I just didn't expect you to be so impatient to the point of making your human puppet now... Don't worry, I will go back but you can stay here and continue working on it, just ask out loud if you want to leave so Shiromari can hear you." I suggested since he couldn't stop while Seno's body was in the middle of being emptied of its organs
"Thank you." he replied before proceeding with his work as if nothing happened
"You're welcome." I said before going back to the room where the door was to bring the fake shinobi back to the healing ward with me
"Hokage-sama! How did the operation go?" the woman who led the medical-nins asked as nothing else mattered more than a patient's life
"I extracted everything from his blood, now he just needs to rest." I said with a smile as my clone was 'sleeping' after the exhausting process
"As expected of the Hokage!" she replied as another medical-nin brought me a glass of freshwater
"Thanks." I said before drinking and then added "We need to record his allergy so it won't happen again, here, It was this particular ingredient." as I gave them a piece of paper
Since the antidote I recently made was essentially working against all currently known poison from Suna, only I knew the ingredients for now and one of them was something not commonly used so I blamed it as the culprit.
"It shall be done, from now on we will avoid giving him medicine including such an ingredient." she said as this information would be written in the hospital database where all shinobi, and civilians, from Konoha had a 'health book' recording many things such as what medication they took that are not commonly sold and need to be given by a medical-nin, or possible issues forbidding some kind of treatment to be used
A notion I decided to take from my world since it was useful for the hospital to know the health antecedent of their patient.
Talking about medical innovation, Tsunade was able to make a chemical that could tell us what blood type someone had by using a single drop of their blood which made the mixture change color depending on it.
She kept on researching ways of making life easier for everyone health-wise, that's why she was not leaving the village, she either helped at the hospital or worked in her laboratory within our house.
Though unlike Orochimaru and I, she was not using human subjects or doing other kinds of illegal deeds in her projects.
"Thank you all for your hard work." I declared which made her giggle before replying "Our job would have been harder if it weren't for yours and Tsunade-sama's medical discoveries."
'How can I not be proud of my wife' I thought as I couldn't help but smile when I heard someone praise her
But my thoughts were soon discarded as a rush of information flowed inside my brain.
'Someone has a death wish' I thought before exclaiming "My apologies but something urgent came up and I have to leave."
"We won't keep you any longer then, stay safe, Hokage-sama." she replied while politely bowing while I simply nodded and closed my eyes
'It seems like I underestimated Ōnoki's usage of underhanded tactics' I thought before vanishing from the ward
Hiring a mercenary to murder me would have been fine, but aiming for my daughter and harming Konan was his last mistake.
クリエイターの想い 
Yasashiki
Yasashiki Done.
Maybe some might be disappointed that Hiruko wasn't killed in a battle but I wanted to write something different.
There will be some ruthlessness from the MC next chapter don't worry :).
It should be ready for Monday, but no promises.
As always, comment if you find grammatical mistakes.
Thanks for reading and I hope that you enjoyed it!
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