Konohagakure's development was progressing at full speed.
The other four great nations were also actively preparing, drawing back the curtain on the age of "one nation, one village."
It likely would not be long before the other four ninja villages followed in Konoha's footsteps and took root within the lands of the great nations.
At that moment, in the Land of Night.
Yomi Castle, the Shogun's Residence.
On Yayoi's desk lay an urgent invitation sent from the Land of Fire.
Yayoi quickly finished reading its contents. There was not much written, and a few glances were enough to take everything in.
The meaning was clear.
After a meeting, Konoha had decided that Senju Hashirama would serve as the village's First Hokage. The formal announcement would also be delivered to the rest of the ninja world through the mouth of the daimyo of the Land of Fire.
However, although the meeting had passed the decision, the ceremony had not yet been held.
Perhaps they felt that such an important matter should not be handled so hastily. Therefore, the daimyo of the Land of Fire and the ninja of Konoha had decided to send invitations to high-level figures from various countries, hoping they would come to Konoha to witness the important ceremony of the First Hokage's inauguration.
The ceremony would be held in mid-January of the following year. The timing was not too tight, giving every country a period of buffer to prepare in advance.
"The First Hokage... Is that the title for the leader of a ninja village?"
Irori, who was also paying attention to the invitation from the side, softly murmured the unfamiliar word "Hokage."
This was a title possessed only by the leader of Konohagakure. Naming it with "Fire" also revealed its close connection to the Land of Fire.
"Then, Father, will you attend the ceremony?"
Irori asked Yayoi what he intended to do.
"There is no harm in going to see it. After all, some things only have meaning if witnessed with one's own eyes."
Yayoi gave his true thoughts without hesitation.
Konohagakure. Hokage.
The age of one nation, one village that existed in his memory had now officially begun.
So he did not want to miss such a meaningful event. He wanted to witness the official birth of the Hokage with his own eyes.
Irori nodded, her expression becoming much more serious.
"In that case, please leave the security arrangements to me when the time comes."
At that time, powerful figures would surely gather in Konoha. Although the Senju and Uchiha would be present, that still could not completely guarantee that no trouble would occur.
There were far too many fools who did not know life from death and could not understand the gap between themselves and others.
As the Shogun of the Land of Night, Yayoi faced no fewer than several dozen assassination attempts every year.
Some of those assassins, in Irori's eyes, were laughably weak. She could not understand how people with that level of strength dared to attempt assassination.
Therefore, one could not underestimate human stupidity. Some fools really couldn't tell how outmatched they were and honestly believed no one could touch them.
"Ah, I will leave it to you. But do not worry too much, Irori. Konoha will definitely prepare proper security when the time comes."
Surely no one would choose that moment to carry out some kind of Konoha Crush Plan, right?
Speaking of which, if Orochimaru tried a Konoha Crush Plan at this point in time, could he win?
Yayoi dared not imagine such a thing happening.
That would be far too absurd.
At present, the ninja world should already be grateful to Senju Hashirama's high moral character for Konoha not launching a ninja world collapse plan instead.
Without him suppressing Uchiha Madara, the ninja world would truly be finished.
"Speaking of which, Irori, your strength should have stabilized recently, right?"
Yayoi paid attention to Irori's physical condition.
She had absorbed a large amount of chakra from a tailed beast and converted it for her own use.
Adding that to the powerful chakra Irori originally possessed, it could be said that, in terms of chakra quantity alone, Irori was already approaching the level of a tailed beast.
Combined with her Ice Style, defeating a tailed beast alone would not be difficult.
Of course, the Nine-Tails was an exception. Yayoi remembered that the Nine-Tails in its four-tailed state had nearly beaten Orochimaru half to death.
In its eight-tailed state, even a sealing jutsu like Chibaku Tensei could not fully suppress it.
And that was only the four-tailed and eight-tailed state of half of the Nine-Tails.
Yayoi felt that the Nine-Tails and the other tailed beasts seemed like two different species altogether.
"Mm. My chakra has already stabilized. If I enter combat now, there will be no further risks."
Irori felt the vast chakra within her body that had settled down, and a confident smile appeared on her face.
At first, this powerful chakra had indeed been difficult to adapt to and had placed a considerable burden on her body.
But after several months of adjustment, that chakra had become like her flesh and blood, a part of her body.
It was no longer a burden, but an even stronger source of support.
If she fought the Seven-Tails again, even the complete Seven-Tails, she could take it down alone.
The power of a tailed beast was strong, but its abilities were too simple. Its body was also too large, making it easy to turn into a target. As long as she possessed a method to counter it, dealing with a tailed beast was not actually difficult for her.
A jinchūriki who could skillfully borrow a tailed beast's power would instead be much harder to handle.
"The pity is that there is no second tailed beast within the Land of Night. With every country sealing its borders now, going out to capture a tailed beast might create significant trouble. The risks outweigh the benefits."
Yayoi sighed with regret.
Most importantly, most tailed beasts were distributed within the territories of the great nations.
If they were in small countries, he would have already gone to capture a second tailed beast.
But great nations...
They were too dangerous right now.
There were too many powerful ninja there, and no small number of ninja had their eyes on the power of tailed beasts.
Although Irori was strong, she was still not enough to run wild unchecked inside a great nation.
"That being said, if one does not have the corresponding methods, tailed beasts are actually very difficult to use. Most importantly, they are difficult to tame."
Irori did not feel it was a pity. The Land of Night currently had great difficulty controlling a second tailed beast.
Sealing a tailed beast required extremely advanced jutsus. For Yayoi, sealing the Seven-Tails alone was already the limit.
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He did not have enough energy to seal a second tailed beast.
Even if they performed a sealing and created a jinchūriki, the difficulty lay in the fact that not just any ninja could become one.
Most ninja would die immediately if a tailed beast were sealed inside them.
Even if the sealing succeeded, the tailed beast would still cause trouble from time to time and go berserk.
If the jutsus were immature, the power of a tailed beast would be a heavy burden rather than support.
"If only I had the Uzumaki clan's sealing jutsus..."
Yayoi could not help feeling envious.
The sealing jutsus he had obtained from the Hagoromo clan and the other small ninja clans he had destroyed were still too low-grade.
His current method of sealing the tailed beast combined sealing jutsus with physical restraint. On top of that, he had to periodically weaken the Seven-Tails' power in order to ensure nothing went wrong. It consumed a great deal of his energy.
If he had high-level sealing jutsus, he would not need to go through so much trouble.
"I wonder if they would accept a marriage alliance... But the position of legal wife has already been taken."
Yayoi once again thought of the path of marriage alliances.
He had already tasted the benefits of exchanging jutsus through marriage with the Hyūga clan.
He had once obtained the corpse of an Uzumaki ninja from the underground black market and had studied the chakra of that clan.
Like him, the chakra of that clan's ninja possessed very strong vitality.
Only, in terms of life activity, it was far inferior to his chakra.
"If I used the activation jutsu, perhaps I could draw in some help."
The foundation Yayoi stood upon was that his chakra naturally carried extremely powerful life activity.
This innate life activity was difficult to teach to outsiders, but that did not mean he had never studied his own special chakra.
A long time ago, through his understanding of his own chakra, he had created a chakra activation technique.
The degree of activation was inferior to that of his own chakra, but it could be applied to others. Outsiders could also learn it.
This was a basic jutsu. If one were flexible enough, more techniques could be derived from it.
Just like the Rasengan, it could be extended in many directions.
Yayoi had always regarded it as one of his trump-card jutsus.
Even when forming a marriage alliance with the Hyūga clan, he had not handed over this jutsu.
In his view, this basic active chakra technique was even more important than incomplete Yin-Yang Release.
The higher the activity of chakra, the more it meant that the three fields of ninjutsu, taijutsu, and genjutsu would all be comprehensively improved.
If practiced for a long time, it might even extend one's natural lifespan.
No, thinking that way is a little too simplistic. The potential of this jutsu far exceeds the value of a marriage alliance. I cannot focus only on the present.
Yayoi gave up the idea.
This kind of basic jutsu, which could be popularized to a certain extent and also bring improvements in ninjutsu, taijutsu, and genjutsu, would be very dangerous if exposed.
Yayoi regained his clarity, though he still deeply desired the powerful sealing jutsus of the Uzumaki clan.
"Irori, handle the affairs here in my place. I am going to the underground level. Also, have Kakuzu come over. Calculating the time, that 'thing' should be nearly complete."
Yayoi patted his face and had Irori take charge here, replacing him in handling official duties.
This was not the first time such a thing had happened.
Irori's importance was self-evident. When he was absent, her authority was equal to his own.
Although it had only been a few short months, anyone could see that Irori was the acting shogun of the Land of Night.
"Yes, Father."
Irori seriously fulfilled her responsibilities and handled official business in Yayoi's place.
◎
The tenshu pavilion, underground space.
The depth here far exceeded the height of the tenshu above ground.
And it was not only deep. Its width was also something that a small tenshu pavilion could not compare to.
There were many entrances and exits here. Some led to the outer court, some led to the inner court, and there were even secret passages leading outside the Shogun's Residence.
The forces guarding this place were also the strictest and strongest.
There were all kinds of mechanisms and traps, as well as many dangerous and powerful explosive devices. If someone unfamiliar with the area broke in, they would certainly be destroyed without even bones left behind.
The ones guarding this place were not only ninja and samurai, but also an extremely mysterious kind of special humanoid puppet that only Yayoi could create.
They maintained a basic human form. Their bodies were smooth and bare, and the important joints of the human body were round, lubricated bearings. Their smooth, rigid outer skin could resist swords and blades, and could also directly endure weaker ninjutsu bombardments.
Most importantly, aside from their inherent toughness, these humanoid puppets also wore heavy armor and carried swords, further strengthening their defense and attack capabilities.
They floated and wandered through the air of the underground space in a strange posture like ghosts, carrying out 24-hour patrols without interruption.
Because of this trait, Yayoi had named these puppets "Ghost Puppets."
There were no chakra threads, nor any other visible method of control. They simply drifted around like that.
Beneath their helmets, a pair of eyes glowed with eerie green light.
They truly looked like a group of ghosts from the underworld.
Quiet.
Silent.
Yayoi had long since grown used to this sight.
Within the Shogun's Residence, this place was the most important facility.
The ninja and samurai were only one checkpoint. These astonishingly numerous Ghost Puppets were also a powerful line of defense.
However, only in this place could the Ghost Puppets move flexibly in a "wireless" mode.
The inspiration came from the Six Paths puppets of the Rinnegan, which used special signal receivers to remotely transmit chakra and control movement.
He did not possess the power of the Rinnegan. But in the field of puppetry, his active chakra held even greater advantages, so this technique had been very easy for him to reproduce.
Otherwise, with Irori alone, how could he possibly have earned the title of "Puppet Master"?
Although he also had other titles, such as "Puppet Shogun" and "Hell Ghost."
During the war that established the Land of Night, although Irori could already be deployed in battle, her abilities had been far inferior to what they were now.
The reason Yayoi had been able to sweep through the Land of Waterfall and the Land of Iron at the time was primarily because of his own ninjutsu and taijutsu, as well as his enormous puppet army.
He could even use chakra threads to control living enemies and force them to kill one another.
His most famous battle was one in which he single-handedly caused a samurai fortress of a thousand men to collapse overnight, turning it into a river of blood.
There, he staged a living puppet theater and created a hell so tragic that not a single person survived.
From then on, the title "Hell Ghost" began to spread.
The limit of a puppet master was ten fingers. Yayoi indeed had only ten fingers.
But after chakra was fully activated, each finger could release dozens of chakra threads and carry out precise puppet operations.
After activation, chakra could also make puppets move with exceptional agility. This was a technique unique to him.
After all, no one had ever made a rule saying that one finger could only release one chakra thread.
He was the strongest puppet master of this era.
He would define what a true puppet master was.
He entered a lower space.
There were fewer and fewer ninja and samurai. Only squad after squad of Ghost Puppets floated in the air.
Deep within the secret chamber stood a steel device the size of a two-story house, shaped like a human brain. It continuously emitted faint chakra fluctuations and was protected by layers of thick hemispherical glass.
A large quantity of fluid was soaking inside it, and bubbles rose one after another, as if this steel brain could breathe.
The glass cover was carved with many curse marks and covered with a huge number of sealing talismans, further strengthening the device's defenses.
This was the core main brain controlling the underground Ghost Puppet Legion.
It spread activated chakra without pause 24 hours a day, connecting to the chakra signal devices inside the puppets and wirelessly controlling the puppet legion in the underground space.
The advantage was that it could control over two thousand puppets without manual operation. In other words, there were more than two thousand Ghost Puppets responsible for guarding this place.
But its weakness was also obvious.
They could not exceed the range of the Shogun's Residence.
Once they left that range, the Ghost Puppets became dead objects, unable to move.
Yayoi glanced at the steel construct inside the glass cover, which resembled a human brain, and smoothly checked the situation here.
This steel brain was, in essence, also one of Yayoi's puppet creations.
Unlike Irori, its body was mainly made from steel, supplemented with many precious chakra metals. After that, a chakra core containing a concentrated consciousness had been created, and only then had it finally been completed.
This steel brain puppet had no name, only a code name.
Zero.
It also did not possess high intelligence, only a machine-like consciousness that coldly obeyed Yayoi's instructions and maintained the operation of the underground Ghost Puppet Legion.
Of course, as Yayoi's highest-grade creation, Irori also possessed command authority here.
This was a control-type puppet weapon born purely to create a large-scale army and conduct war.
"Its condition is completely intact. Its performance is much more stable than before. If I want to upgrade its performance in the future, it will be much more convenient."
After checking the steel brain, Yayoi gave his judgment.
According to his earliest vision, this brain puppet, Zero, would be able to freely control over ten thousand puppets and expand the activity range of the Ghost Puppet Legion to the entire territory of the Land of Night.
However, achieving that was too difficult. Whether in terms of strength or technology, at present, it could only exist as an idea on paper.
"Yayoi-sama, I am here. What did you need me for?"
Footsteps sounded behind him.
The black-clothed, masked ninja, Kakuzu, appeared not far behind Yayoi, interrupting his thoughts.
"Sorry for troubling you at this time. However, I called you here because there is something very important I need to give you. Based on the time, it should be complete by now."
Without explaining further, Yayoi walked in another direction and signaled for Kakuzu to follow.
The steel passage was enclosed, but the space was not small. Even a large summoned beast could pass through it.
"I do not think... I have been to this place before."
Kakuzu observed the surrounding environment.
He did not often come to the lower levels of the tenshu pavilion. He only knew that many dangerous things were kept here.
The last time he had come recently was when they brought the Seven-Tails here to be sealed.
As far as he knew, the severely injured Seven-Tails had been trapped by Yayoi in some sealed prison within this underground space.
"That is because I keep many dangerous items here. If someone touches them carelessly, something terrible will happen."
Yayoi offered a simple explanation.
In the end, the two of them stopped before a huge iron door.
A large talisman was pasted on the iron door. Yayoi merely placed his palm against it, and the talisman immediately detached from the door and drifted down.
The iron door slowly opened.
Purple fluorescence spilled out through the widening gap.
Behind the door seemed to be another world, revealing an aura that was cold and mysterious.
"Come in. I think you should be able to master that thing perfectly."
Following Yayoi into the room, Kakuzu was curious about what Yayoi intended to give him.
The space behind the iron door was unbelievably large. It was hard to imagine that such a huge artificial structure existed a hundred meters underground.
Rows of large cylindrical glass containers stood there, filled with green fluid. Inside were many strange creatures or artificial objects. They breathed consciously, releasing bubbles.
The sound of bubbling was the only sound here.
Quiet.
Deathly still.
When they arrived before the last glass container, Kakuzu saw what was inside.
Unlike the previous things, it was a mass of...
Threads?
No.
That was not right.
It was a mass of black tentacle-like creatures tangled together, as if they were breathing.
They wrapped around each other in circles, pulsing like a heart.
A living tentacle heart.