Shaping

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After the three members of Team Eleven left the Hokage's office, Danzo rose with his cane and slowly walked to the front of the Hokage's desk. His gaze was hard as he fixed it on the Third. "Hiruzen, it is time to make a decision."

The Third shook his head. "The situation has not reached the point of no return."

"Have you considered what kind of losses the village will suffer if they move first?" Danzo paused briefly, then pressed on. "Let me handle it. I will keep the damage to a minimum."

The Third held his pipe between his teeth and took a slow drag. "Has the lesson from Kirigakure's unrest not been painful enough? From now on, I will handle the Uchiha matter. Do not interfere again."

When the Third brought up Kirigakure's upheaval, Danzo had no answer.

The recent unrest in Kirigakure had nearly destroyed its reputation as one of the Five Great Shinobi Villages. The village's strength had been badly damaged, and even the Land of Water had fallen into turmoil.

Because of that, everyone understood one thing clearly: a tragedy like that could never be allowed to happen in Konoha.

After a moment of silence, Danzo said, "We cannot allow Shisui Uchiha to remain in ANBU. His strength is no longer beneath yours or mine. If he fully sides with the Uchiha, you will be in grave danger."

The Third nodded.

The reason the Third had agreed so readily to Danzo's proposal and suspended every member of Team Eleven was partly his caution toward Shisui.

Because Shisui had taken credit for Naoki's achievements in the valley battle, both the Third and Danzo had overestimated Shisui's combat strength. When they added his Mangekyo Sharingan and Kotoamatsukami to the equation, his threat level rose by several ranks at once.

At this point, neither the Third nor Danzo was confident they could suppress Shisui one-on-one.

And ANBU directly under the Hokage had permission to enter and leave the Hokage Building freely. If Shisui ever harbored different intentions, the Third could very well suffer a fatal ambush while completely unprepared.

Although the Third did not believe Shisui would betray the village, as Hokage, he could not take that risk.

One week later, Naoki returned openly to the village before his two-month leave expired.

Only after returning did he learn that he had been suspended. Even so, he was not surprised. To him, his current ANBU position had already become optional.

In truth, he had never planned to remain in ANBU long-term.

Even if the Third had not suspended him, he would have found a suitable chance to resign from ANBU on his own.

After all, he had already obtained what he wanted: the Uzumaki Clan's sealing arts, the internal layout of the Hokage Building, details on the guards around the classified archives, information on ANBU members, and more. His record even now included service in the Hokage's direct ANBU. There was no real need for him to continue staying there.

ANBU had many privileges, but it also came with many restrictions.

For example, ordinary Konoha shinobi could accept missions freely from the mission center as long as the village had not assigned them a mandatory task. After that, they could leave the village naturally to carry out the mission.

ANBU was different. ANBU missions were assigned directly by the Hokage. Every action was restricted by the Hokage, and where they went, what they did, and why they moved all had to be reported. It offered very little freedom.

That might not matter much to an ordinary Konoha shinobi, but for Naoki, it was extremely inconvenient. At this point, the ANBU identity had become more trouble than benefit.

'But why suspend all of Team Eleven?'

Thinking of that, Naoki faintly sensed that the village leadership's target might not be him. They might simply be using the death of the Root shinobi as an excuse to move against someone else in Team Eleven.

And that person was undoubtedly Shisui.

After considering it for a while, Naoki pushed the matter aside.

As long as the peace talks between Konoha and Kumogakure remained unsettled, nothing would happen to the Uchiha. What Naoki needed to do now was not stir up trouble everywhere, but use this window while everyone else was too busy to focus on him and increase his strength.

In the shinobi world, strength was what decided everything in the end.

Over the next few days, Naoki met with the other three members of Team Eleven, made a few appearances around the clan to let everyone know he had returned, then stayed at home and went nowhere.

Danzo did not send anyone to watch him during those days. Naoki was too lazy to dig into the reason.

On the seventh day after returning to the village, with everything prepared, he officially began his artificial Tailed Beast project.

First, he needed to create a vessel for his artificial Tailed Beast.

The material for that vessel was the Violet Mire Resin recorded in the artificial Tailed Beast scroll. Over the past few days, he had quietly run several tests and confirmed that Violet Mire Resin possessed an extremely strong ability to isolate chakra. It was well suited to serve as the vessel of an artificial Tailed Beast.

As for the formulas, he had already memorized every formula recorded in the artificial Tailed Beast scroll until he could recite them backward. The chance of an error was nearly zero.

"Byakugan, activate!"

After scanning the area around his house again and confirming that no one was spying on him, Naoki took out the scroll containing the Violet Mire Resin and released all the resin sealed inside.

Looking at the pile of Violet Mire Resin before him, a material worth its weight in gold, he thought for a while and decided to shape the artificial Tailed Beast's vessel into a simple sphere.

He chose a sphere not because he wanted convenience, but because the simpler the shape, the more stable the structure.

After all, to him, the artificial Tailed Beast was only meant to function like a battery. If he made the shape overly elaborate and reduced its stability, he would be sacrificing the important part for decoration.

Once he made up his mind, he began engraving formulas onto the Violet Mire Resin bit by bit.

The formula engraving had to be completed in one continuous process. He could not pause midway, and he could not allow a single mistake or omission.

Otherwise, at best, obvious flaws would appear in the artificial Tailed Beast's vessel and become unstable points. At worst, the vessel would rupture the moment it tried to contain the chakra source.

Because this process was so critical, Naoki activated the Tenseigan directly while engraving the formulas. Through the Tenseigan's unmatched insight, he controlled his chakra down to the finest detail and raised the precision of the engraving to its limit.

Time always passed quickly when a person focused on one thing.

Naoki glanced at the dawn light outside the window and closed his Tenseigan.

After spending the entire night engraving formulas without rest, he had finally completed the shaping of the artificial Tailed Beast's vessel. Fortunately, he had chosen a simple sphere. Otherwise, even with the Tenseigan's help, a single night would not have been enough to finish such a large amount of work.

After sealing the shaped artificial Tailed Beast vessel back into the scroll, Naoki slowly stood and stretched toward the pale light outside the window.

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