Speculation on the Artifacts

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At first, the Uchiha challenges against Naoki were only discussed inside the Uchiha Clan.

But after Shinichi Uchiha and Hiiragi Uchiha failed one after another, the news could not stay hidden forever. The story spread, and soon other shinobi clans in the village joined the discussion.

That night.

After cleaning up the dishes, Suzu hesitated for a moment. In the end, she could not help asking, "Naoki, is what people are saying outside true?"

Naoki was still thinking about mixing toxins, so he asked absently, "What are they saying outside?"

Suzu said anxiously, "About you and the Uchiha."

"Oh, that." After smiling, Naoki nodded. "Yes. The Uchiha did send people to challenge me, but I beat them both."

Suzu looked worried. "The Uchiha are not people you want to provoke. Can we stop provoking them?"

Hearing that, Naoki stared at Suzu in a daze.

Suzu asked cautiously, "Did I say something wrong?"

Naoki shook his head.

He truly had been surprised just now. He had not expected that Suzu, who belonged to the great Hyuga Clan, would also fear the Uchiha this much. From that, he could imagine how ordinary shinobi in the village felt about the Uchiha.

In terms of popular sentiment alone, one could say the Uchiha had already split completely away from the village.

Thinking of that, Naoki's expression darkened slightly.

The Uchiha were not only a stepping stone for Naoki's reputation. They were also a magnet that drew attention away from him. As long as the Uchiha existed, the Third Hokage, Danzo, and even Obito hidden behind the scenes would keep their eyes fixed on the Uchiha Clan.

If the Uchiha Clan vanished, then who those people's eyes would turn toward became impossible to say.

So from the standpoint of Naoki's own interests, the Uchiha Clan could not be destroyed. At the very least, it could not be destroyed too quickly before his own strength fully reached Kage level. That was another reason he was willingly cooperating with Shisui.

Besides, Naoki had never stopped thinking about the artifacts known as the Totsuka Blade and the Yata Mirror.

In his memory, Orochimaru, who used the Eight Branches Technique and could rival a Tailed Beast, had been sealed by Itachi's Totsuka Blade in a single strike. Through the entire clash, Orochimaru had barely been able to resist before Itachi suppressed him cleanly.

Because of that, Naoki had an extremely deep impression of those two artifacts in Itachi's possession.

Naoki had also made many guesses about what the two artifacts truly were.

In his view, there were only two possibilities.

The first possibility was that the Totsuka Blade and the Yata Mirror were simply unique abilities of Itachi's Susanoo. They would be part of Itachi's own chakra and could not exist independently.

The second possibility was that the two artifacts were spirit weapons in some kind of chakra state, which was why they could be equipped directly onto Itachi's Susanoo.

Between those two possibilities, Naoki leaned toward the latter.

Because when Itachi used the Totsuka Blade and the Yata Mirror, both Orochimaru and the watching Black Zetsu recognized the artifacts. They even knew something about their abilities.

Based on that alone, the two artifacts should have existed in the shinobi world long before then, leaving behind traces and legends.

Otherwise, Orochimaru and Black Zetsu could not possibly have known the details of the artifacts the first time Itachi used them.

It simply would not make sense.

Of course, before truly obtaining the artifacts, everything remained speculation.

As for the artifacts' location, after thinking it over again and again, Naoki felt that no matter whether the first possibility or the second was correct, the task of finding them was best left to Itachi.

Orochimaru, who knew many of the shinobi world's secrets, had searched for the Totsuka Blade for years and failed to find it. That showed the two artifacts must be hidden in some extremely special place.

Naoki even suspected that the clue to the artifacts' whereabouts was hidden within the Uchiha Clan itself. Perhaps after the clan massacre, Itachi obtained that clue and used it to find the artifacts.

After considering the matter for a while, Naoki reined in his wandering thoughts.

Itachi was still young. The matter of the artifacts could be set aside for now. After all, aside from Itachi, no one else should be able to find those two artifacts for more than a decade.

Naoki's most urgent priority remained the artificial Tailed Beast project.

Once he had the support of a vast amount of chakra, he would not only be able to further explore the Tenseigan, but also boldly learn all kinds of secret and forbidden techniques.

The next day, Naoki went to the Forest of Death as usual.

After many failures, the eighth version of his paralytic toxin finally showed progress. Once he fed it to the little wild boar, it immediately felt numb. After struggling a few times, it collapsed stiffly to the ground.

Although the little wild boar recovered fully after only five or six minutes, that was already enough.

On the battlefield, losing mobility for five or six minutes was fatal to a shinobi. Even losing mobility for five or six seconds could be a deadly opening.

Seeing the result, Naoki smiled faintly. "Looks like my idea was right."

Previously, he had collected ordinary spotted venom moths. Although he had gathered many of them, their toxicity was uneven. In this eighth version of the paralytic toxin, he used the poisonous powder of a venom moth king. The amount was much smaller, but the toxicity was extremely fierce.

He also discovered that giant-jawed ant saliva suppressed toxicity. So when mixing the toxin, he lowered the proportion of giant-jawed ant saliva.

Doing so reduced the active duration of the paralytic toxin from three days to one day, but it preserved potency. For a toxin, potency was the key. Every other factor had to yield to it.

Just as Naoki was recording the experimental result and considering whether to use giant-jawed ant saliva as the main ingredient for an antidote, a figure landed on a large tree in front of him.

"Jonin Naoki Hyuga, Lord Hokage summons you urgently."

The messenger left only those words before hurrying away. It seemed he still needed to deliver messages to other shinobi.

Naoki put away his notebook and frowned. "The half-month leave is not over yet. Did the Hidden Stone really come knocking?"

The reason he had spent these vacation days busily mixing toxins was his worry that Iwagakure would use the destruction of its beheading unit as an excuse to make trouble for Konoha.

Konoha, having lost the Fourth Hokage and the Nine-Tails jinchuriki, no longer had the deterrent power it had possessed right after the Third Shinobi World War. It was entirely possible that Iwagakure would seize this moment to take a bite.

At that point, even if a major war did not erupt, localized clashes would be unavoidable. And as an ANBU directly under the Hokage, Naoki would inevitably participate in front-line fighting, so he had no choice but to improve his strength as quickly as possible.

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