Starting with the Uchiha clan, they began cultivating demonic arts.

Chapter 144 Heading to Kirigakure

"Whoa!"

Blood seeped from under the mask. Kushimaru Kurihara's thin and tall body was almost split in two by Tsunade's punch. He was bent at an acute angle and crashed into the city wall again with a loud bang.

Three members of the Seven Ninja Swordsmen of the Mist were already lying on the city wall. After being hit by Kushimaru Kurihara, the long-suffering city wall finally collapsed with a crash.

The remaining four members of the Seven Ninja Swordsmen of the Mist felt their hands and feet turn cold and their heads explode when they looked at the imposing Tsunade.

Suigetsu Hozuki gasped and looked at Biwa Juzo, only to see that Biwa Juzo was also looking at him with a shifty gaze. The two exchanged a glance and both had already decided to retreat.

In reality, it wasn't just Suigetsu Hozuki. Kurosuki Raiga, wielding a lightning sword, and Hozuki Reigetsu, wielding twin swords and a flounder, were standard blood mist ninjas who were obsessed with killing, but they weren't truly mindless!

Given Tsunade's current strength, whether she knows Wood Release or not is irrelevant—we definitely can't beat her anyway! She can easily defeat us with her monstrous strength and physical prowess alone.

However, the Seven Ninja Swordsmen of the Mist were willing to retreat, but they first had to get past Tsunade. Tsunade's demand from Uchiha Tou was to wipe them all out!

Having been through countless battles and seen the battlefield many times, Tsunade immediately noticed the retreat intentions of the remaining four members of the Seven Ninja Swordsmen of the Mist, and a slight smile appeared on her lips:

"Trying to run... Don't even dream about it! Stay here, all of you!"

"Wood Release: Advent of a World of Trees!"

Amidst the rumbling sound, countless enormous trees sprouted from the earth. In the despairing eyes of the Seven Ninja Swordsmen, the endless trees, like a towering green wave, crashed down upon them!

……

"Lord Kari! The Seven Ninja Swordsmen's chakra has become extremely weak; they are likely either severely injured or sealed away!"

"Go! Let's retreat immediately!"

Seeing the forest that suddenly appeared in the distance and listening to the report from his subordinate sensory ninja, the Explosion Release ninja, Kari, prepared to lead his explosives squad to escape the scene without saying a word.

"The Fifth Hokage has indeed awakened Wood Release... Although we don't know if his Wood Release level is comparable to the First Hokage's, it's something we can't test anymore."

"It only took the Seven Ninja Swordsmen of the Mist to be captured in about five minutes! Luckily we didn't get involved, otherwise even if we had joined forces with the Seven Ninja Swordsmen of the Mist, we would probably have been wiped out in the end."

Regardless of the Fifth Hokage's actual Wood Release level, it was clear that defeating an ordinary Seven Ninja Swordsmen of the Mist and the Explosives Squad would be a piece of cake. For these Iwa ninja, obtaining such information meant they hadn't left empty-handed.

"We have to thank those idiots from the Seven Ninja Swordsmen for scouting ahead for us; otherwise, the Tree World Descent would probably have happened to us."

As he turned around, he spoke, but as soon as he turned around, he saw a Konoha ninja wearing an Anbu mask standing behind him.

"Konoha's Anbu? What are you trying to do by stopping us? Does Konoha want to start a war with Iwa ninja?"

Hunti's expression darkened slightly, and he spoke in a low voice. If these were ordinary Konoha Anbu members, they might not dare to start a war with them after hearing what he said.

Unfortunately… a red light flashed in the eyes of the ANBU member before him, startling Kari:

"Oh no...it's the Uchiha clan..."

With a series of thuds, the Iwa ninja's demolition squad was completely wiped out. They were all stripped of their five senses by Uchiha Hiu and collapsed to the ground.

"What a load of nonsense! Does this guy think I'm an idiot? Even a moron could see you're up to no good!"

Uchiha Touyu muttered to himself. He didn't care about the infighting between ninja villages, and he hadn't even thought about that aspect. In his eyes, the entire ninja world would soon become his vegetable garden, so he naturally didn't care about the current conflicts among these "leeks" (his victims).

At this moment, Tsunade also came over with her prisoners. The Seven Ninja Swordsmen of the Mist were entangled in a large net made of vines. At the front of the net, Tsunade grabbed a long vine and dragged it along the ground.

"Alright, I've captured all seven Ninja Swordsmen of the Mist. What's next?"

Tsunade put down the vine, clapped her hands, and asked. Uchiha Touyu glanced at the unfortunate Seven Ninja Swordsmen. Several of the Seven Ninja Swordsmen who had been punched by Tsunade were now barely breathing.

"Let's give those guys first aid! Then I'll use the Divine Transference Technique to turn them into my people. Kirigakure... that Mei Terumi should be seventeen or eighteen years old now, right?"

"I wonder if she has the strength of a Kage level now? If not, it doesn't matter. We can just cultivate with her and feed her some pills. Her strength will naturally increase greatly then."

Because the Mist Ninja is far from the mainland, no one knows what their current situation is. However, during the Fourth Shinobi World War, there were vague rumors that the Third Mizukage was actually controlled by genjutsu for a long time, and that the Third Mizukage, when he regained consciousness, wanted to end the Blood Mist policy.

Uchiha Touyu estimated that it was because he killed Uchiha Madara that the Third Mizukage woke up from the genjutsu. Because of this change, he couldn't refer to the original story to see what Kirigakure was like now.

But whether it's the Third or Fourth Mizukage in charge now, it makes little difference to Uchiha Tou. It's just that the Fourth Mizukage might be easier to deal with compared to the Third Mizukage.

After all, the Third Mizukage must have been terrified of genjutsu and would definitely be on guard in this regard. It wouldn't be easy to kill him off in a reasonable way. The Fourth Mizukage, on the other hand, is a Jinchūriki. As long as there's an excuse like the Tailed Beast going berserk, he can be easily killed.

Before that, he controlled the Seven Ninja Swordsmen of the Mist, which was also a backup plan for Uchiha Touya. If the Third Hokage was still alive and wouldn't listen to reason, he would let the Seven Ninja Swordsmen of the Mist rebel and then add some more fuel to the fire, and he wouldn't have to worry about him not dying.

As for the Iwagakure demolition squad… Uchiha Touyu glanced at them and said to Tsunade:

"Tsunade, I'm leaving these people to you! What are you going to do with them?"

"Leave them to me? If it were me, I'd probably use these people to make some kind of deal with Iwagakure!"

Tsunade pondered for a moment and gave the answer most befitting her current status. Uchiha Touyu nodded slightly, disregarding what these guys could exchange for, and directly said:

"Then I'll leave it to Tsunade... By the way, these guys should have the Explosion Release Kekkei Genkai, right?"

Uchiha Touya suddenly remembered this question, and Tsunade answered it very carefully:

"The Iwagakure Explosion Squad... Most of their Explosion Release Kekkei Genkai have some flaws. It seems that apart from Gari, everyone else has to use some external object to use their Explosion Release Kekkei Genkai."

"Using external objects..."

Upon hearing Tsunade's words, Uchiha Tou immediately thought of a certain artist, Deidara. Deidara's Explosion Release technique used only clay, but this guy had taken explosive clay to an art form, which was definitely beyond the reach of ordinary demolition squad members.

Even the leader of this explosive squad, Kari, whose Explosion Release bloodline limit is flawless, is far inferior to Deidara. Even ordinary Kage-level ninjas, if they are not proficient in Lightning Release, a counter-ninjutsu, would be no match for Deidara.

Deidara's performance perfectly illustrated what it means to have perfect ninjutsu, only perfect people. However, it was clear that the other ninjas in the demolition squad did not have such talent, so Uchiha Touyu turned his attention to Kari.

In the past, if Uchiha Touyu wanted to awaken a kekkei genkai of the ninjutsu type, he had to use the souls of those kekkei genkai ninjas. However, now that he is a fake Six Paths level ninja, he can cultivate a general kekkei genkai of the ninjutsu synthesis type as long as he knows the training method and fiddles with it a little.

With his level of illusion magic, it would be an easy task for him to extract the cultivation method from Shou's head.

Three days later, Uchiha Tou and the others finally returned to Konoha Village. As for the Seven Ninja Swordsmen of the Mist and the Explosive Squad, they had already been sent to prison by Uchiha Tou using the Flying Thunder God Technique.

After returning to Konoha, Tsunade held a ceremony to officially assume the Hokage position. Although she was originally the acting Hokage, her position was not legitimate, so no ceremony was held. This time, she made up for it.

The ceremony was held during the day, and at night her gambling addiction flared up again. She played a game with Uchiha Tou, and they went through several near-death experiences before she finally calmed down after breaking through ten "正" characters on her body.

After spending seven or eight days in Konoha, Uchiha Touya played around with Konoha's training grounds several times, assigned tasks to Tsunade, and then led the Seven Ninja Swordsmen of the Mist to Kirigakure to continue his plan.

Kirigakure is isolated overseas, strong in defense but weak in offense. It is the only one of the five great ninja villages that has never been invaded by other ninja villages.

For ordinary ninjas to infiltrate the Land of Water across the vast ocean is no easy task. After all, there is no land connecting them, and as long as the Land of Water conducts thorough inspections of ships, the vast majority of ordinary ninjas will be helpless.

However, Uchiha Touyu was certainly not among the ordinary ninjas, and the ninjas who were inspecting the docks in the Land of Water would have no chance of finding any trace of him.

Not to mention the Seven Ninja Swordsmen of the Mist, whose reputation was renowned far and wide. As soon as these seven people disembarked from the ship, the inspecting ninjas respectfully stepped aside.

Unlike the atmosphere of Konoha, where even though there was a lot of darkness within the village, Konoha in the past would never bring it into the open.

Even Danzo knew that the darkness of Root could not be exposed to the light. Even after becoming the 5.5th Hokage, he still yearned for the light, rather than following Root's simple and brutal methods.

However, Kirigakure is basically an enlarged version of Root. The fact that one must kill their closest comrade to graduate is full of Root's cold-blooded style.

What's even more tragic is that at least Root had Danzo Shimura as its leader, and the other Root ninjas only needed to obey his orders. But Kirigakure was full of factions and extremely chaotic.

Therefore, Kirigakure is a place where the strong prey on the weak, and there are no rules at all. In other words, whoever has the bigger fist is the real rule!

In the past, if the Seven Ninja Swordsmen of the Mist disliked a ninja conducting an inspection, they could simply kill him. At most, they would receive a minor punishment, or even nothing at all if they found a good enough reason.

After the Third Mizukage awoke from the genjutsu, he was determined to reform and make changes. However, the problems accumulated over decades were too deep to be reversed. In such a short time, these ordinary ninjas had not changed their mindset at all. How could they dare to inspect the Seven Ninja Swordsmen of the Mist?

Soon the Seven Ninja Swordsmen of the Mist returned to the entrance of Kirigakure. Under the control of Uchiha Tou's genjutsu, the seven behaved as usual. The ninja guarding the gate didn't dare to stop these seven old men, and without finding anything wrong, they let the seven into Kirigakure.

"The current Mist Ninja is still the Third Mizukage... Speaking of which, after his genjutsu was broken, why didn't he abdicate?"

"The Third Mizukage's policies did indeed increase the strength of Kirigakure to some extent, and he was only given a slight hint, so he leaned towards the Blood Mist policy. In reality, most of his decisions were not problematic."

"If the Third Mizukage were truly completely brainless, then Elder Genji, and all those bloodline families in the village, would probably have already tried every means to remove him from power!"

The one who respectfully answered Uchiha Touyu's question was none other than Suigetsu Hobuki, the wielder of the great sword Samehada. He vaguely occupied the center position among the Seven Ninja Swordsmen of the Mist. In addition to being stronger than the other Seven Ninja Swordsmen, the most important thing was his delicate mind, which was completely different from his fat appearance.

Since the atmosphere of Kirigakure is similar to that of Root, the problems they face are naturally similar as well. There are plenty of ninjas who can kill, but you can't find one with brains among 100 ninjas. And there are even fewer like Suigetsu Hobuki, who is both good at fighting and has brains.

For example, the other members of the Seven Ninja Swordsmen of the Mist all revealed clear yet foolish eyes when Uchiha Hiu and Suigetsu Hozuki were talking, with only Biwa Juzo and that Hozuki clan ninja being slightly better.

"I see……"

Uchiha Touyu nodded. Compared to Obito Uchiha's mindless actions driven by personal grudges, Madara Uchiha was much more rational. Although he created the atmosphere of blood mist to control Kirigakure, he did not intend to weaken Kirigakure's power.

"It seems that although the Third Mizukage's policies had some problems, he still holds a certain amount of prestige in your village..."

"That's true. Moreover, the Third Mizukage was the strongest ninja in our village. The fact that the Blood Mist policy was implemented was due to his immense strength!"

He is powerful and prestigious, at least his fierce aura can intimidate the entire ninja village... so this guy deserves to die even more. If he doesn't die, how can the person I have my eye on take over?

(End of this chapter)