Hiruko had survived by fleeing under pursuit from the Three Legendary Sannin.
But from Yuji's perspective, the reason he had made it out alive was almost certainly that all three of them had deliberately let him escape. They had grown up together after all. And Hiruko's reason for researching the forbidden technique in the first place had been nothing more complex than deep-seated inferiority.
The outside world knew Hiruzen had three legendary disciples, all of them among the ninja world's absolute elite. By comparison, Hiruko had become a Konoha Jonin but could not even stand in the same conversation as those three. Among people of the same generation, barely anyone even knew he existed.
To avoid Konoha's pursuit, he naturally needed to hide within the territory of one of the Five Great Hidden Villages. The Land of Wind, remote and bordering the Land of Fire, was without question the most practical choice.
Looking at the original story, the fact that Hiruko had managed to survive into the later era suggested that neither the Three Sannin nor Hiruzen had ever seriously intended to hunt him down to the end.
"This is the place," White Zetsu said, emerging halfway from the earth at Yuji's feet after less than a day of travel under its guidance, its expression carrying a certain gleeful quality.
The area was close to the border with the Land of Mountains, surrounded by rising rock formations and cliff faces rather than the flat desert and sandy terrain that dominated most of the Land of Wind. A genuinely good hiding spot.
Yuji was dressed in ordinary civilian clothing, the long robes characteristic of the Land of Wind's style. He had not changed into combat attire.
His eyes sharpened, and in an instant he activated his perception, allowing his gaze to penetrate through the rock faces of the surrounding mountains one after another.
Then his focus settled on a particular cave deep inside one of the formations.
He saw Hiruko lying there, wrapped head to toe in bandages, his expression twisted with pain. His hair was completely white. His build was not as diminutive as the version seen in later years, still relatively normal in stature.
The Chimera Technique required a fundamental reshaping of the physical body. And as a forbidden technique, it carried extremely powerful side effects and inherent dangers.
"Interesting," Yuji murmured, observing the chakra movements within Hiruko's body, the corner of his mouth curving slightly.
By now Hiruko appeared to have already absorbed two bloodline limits. And in order to allow his physical body to contain the power of two separate bloodlines without collapsing, his body in the strictest sense was no longer fully human.
The cellular rejection and tissue destruction occurring within him would be subjecting him to a level of pain that ordinary people simply could not imagine. And as time passed and more bloodline limits were absorbed, the destruction would grow progressively worse.
Swoosh.
Without another word, Yuji vanished.
Inside the mountain cave on the other side, Hiruko let out a sharp cry.
He clutched his head and rolled off the stone surface he had been lying on, hitting the floor drenched in sweat.
"Just a little longer. It is not time yet. As long as I can become an immortal ninja and fully complete the Chimera Technique, all of this will have been worth it."
Hiruko gasped through the pain.
He had already placed a puppet curse on Kakashi. Once he had collected all four of the bloodline limits he needed, he would complete the conditions at the predetermined moment and absorb Kakashi entirely. At that point the work would be finished.
When that day came, his name would resonate across the entire ninja world. He would become stronger than even the Three Legendary Sannin. He would return to Konoha and prove himself to everyone. He would make Sarutobi Hiruzen understand exactly what it had cost the village to drive him away.
He was inferior to no one.
Just as Hiruko was forcing himself to suppress the pain wracking his body and gasping for breath, he heard footsteps. Strange, unhurried footsteps. Someone had simply appeared inside the cave and was moving around casually.
"You are genuinely committed to this. Using yourself as the test subject."
"Remarkable in its own way. You are even willing to try cells from non-human organisms, apparently without fear of large-scale tissue necrosis threatening your life. Simple cellular activation cannot avoid the underlying complications of this approach. You can only forcibly delay the collapse. What you are attempting is cellular co-dissolution and reconstruction."
"This Konoha forbidden technique has a certain research foundation behind it, but the reason it was classified as forbidden and ordered stopped is precisely because the path to completing it has never been fully verified."
The voice of a man drifted over from somewhere close by.
Every hair on Hiruko's body stood on end. He snapped his head up immediately.
He saw a figure with its back to him, casually examining the various containers and tools arranged on a stone surface beside him. The person carried himself with complete ease, utterly unconcerned about having intruded, moving through the space as though it were his own home.
"You have also been keeping captured summoning beasts up here in the mountains for research."
The man set down a container filled with liquid, turned his head to look somewhere else, and spoke with complete indifference.
Hiruko's mind went completely blank.
How had this person found this place? How had he approached without triggering even the faintest warning?
And he seemed to know everything about what Hiruko was doing here.
Who was this?
There was no time to think it through. Pure instinct took over. Hiruko launched himself into an attack in the same instant.
Still absorbing the agony from his body's ongoing rejection process, he burst upward from the ground in a flash, becoming a streak of movement as he drove toward the intruder's back.
Bang.
He moved in fast and retreated just as fast. The moment he closed the distance, before he could even register the response, a terrifying force connected directly with him. His entire body was launched through the air and slammed into the cave wall.
The impact shook the entire mountain cave. Rock fragments and dust exploded outward in every direction.
But Hiruko appeared to take no actual damage from the collision. He had activated his bloodline limit at the moment of impact, deploying his Steel Release to harden his entire body and nullify the physical damage.
In the same instant his body hit the wall, both feet found purchase and pushed off the rocky surface, driving him back toward the intruder at even greater speed. The acceleration produced a sharp crack as he moved, carving a vacuum trail through the settling dust.
The force and pressure of the charge were genuinely intimidating.
But this fierce assault stopped dead in complete silence the moment before it could reach its target.
A single finger extended, aimed directly at Hiruko's forehead.
The distance between them was precise to the point of appearing calculated, as though the intruder had measured exactly how far away to stand so that Hiruko could not complete his strike.
Hiruko's pupils shook violently.
His entire field of vision was filled with a pair of eyes carrying a faint golden light within deep red pupils. Those eyes looked directly into his, seeming to expand endlessly the longer he stared into them. An overwhelming pressure of pure mental force bore down on him, making it nearly impossible to maintain control of his own body. The signals his brain was trying to send seemed to be intercepted somewhere before they could reach his limbs.
"You are..."
The moment he took in the face before him, Hiruko felt as though he had been dropped into ice water.
He had already confirmed who this intruder was.
The Fourth Kazekage. Yuji.
The most powerful figure standing at the absolute apex of the current ninja world.
An eye technique?
No. Not just an eye technique.
Hiruko tried to regulate his internal chakra flow and break through the suppression.
But the Fourth Kazekage's finger suddenly moved in a series of rapid precise strikes against the surface of his body, working through a sequence that resembled acupuncture.
And then Hiruko felt it. The chakra pathways inside his body had been disrupted. He could no longer control them.
"Hyuga clan pressure point technique?" Hiruko narrowed his eyes.
"Hiding in my Land of Wind, capturing that many summoning beasts for secret experiments, and managing not to be found for this long. You have real ability," Yuji said with a calm smile.
He had not been relying solely on his eye technique to suppress Hiruko. He had combined the Body Pathway Derangement technique with his eye technique's paralyzing effect, layering them together into a coordinated combination that left Hiruko essentially unable to function.
"How did you find this place?" Hiruko demanded, even as he strained to push chakra through the disrupted pathways.
"This is the Land of Wind. And you are a Konoha rogue ninja. Why do you think I would come looking for you?" Yuji said pleasantly.
Hiruko said nothing.
"Your Chimera Technique is genuinely interesting. The Sand Village has been conducting similar research recently, and this particular forbidden technique might give me a useful point of insight."
Yuji looked at Hiruko steadily.
"So. Are you willing to make a small sacrifice for the Sand Village and help me complete some experiments?"
The moment those words left his mouth, Hiruko's expression shifted completely.
"Do not worry. I genuinely have the ability to improve this technique of yours. I will not let you suffer more than necessary."
Yuji said it with complete sincerity, extending his open hand toward Hiruko.
"Wait, wait a moment!"
"No!!!"
...
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