Chapter 456: A Toxin

These two crows are the ones Kuroto sent to the current Mizukage and the current Kazekage before he sneaked out of Konoha.

Since the current Mizukage Karatachi Yagura and the current Kazekage Pakura are his subordinates, so the secret archives of the two great shinobi villages are naturally databases to be used by Amatsukami.

For this reason, Kuroto asked the two Kage to send several documents that he needed to study.

From Sunagakure, Kuroto asked for the Scrolls detailing Magnet Release and Scorch Release. These two Kekkei Genkai involve Wind as an element, therefore, Kuroto asked for this information.

On the other hand, from Kirigakure, Kuroto asked for information on the Kaguya Clan.

After the extermination of the Kaguya clan, a large number of ancient scrolls and a lot of information detailing the origins of the Kaguya Clan were confiscated by Kirigakure.

Kuroto of course, read many of these documents previously while he was staying in Kirigakure, but he did not read everything due to the lack of time, and even the ones he read, Kuroto did not pay too much attention to them as at that point, Kuroto was more focused on studying many Jutsu for his Suijin Clone.

And now that he is creating the Wind Clone using the genes of the Kaguya Clan, so Kuroto needs to consider more things, and study the Kaguya Clan in more detail. At the same time, there is also some interest in finding information about the relation of the Kaguya Clan with the Hyuga Clan.

So carrying the two scrolls, Kuroto came to his study, and after putting aside the two storage scrolls, Kuroto focused his attention on the two letters that are sent to him by the two Kage.

After opening the letter sent to him by Yagura, Kuroto started to read.

Firstly, Yagura described the recent changes in Kirigakure, the progress of finding and retrieving the lost Seven Swords, and also the progress of hunting the nuke-nin of Kirigakure. At the same time, he has also detailed the recent trainees that have been recruited to the Seven Ninja Swordsmen of Mist. Of all the trainees, two trainees, namely, Ringo Ameyuri and Hozuki Mangetsu are quite good and are deemed to match with Kiba and Hiramekarei, respectively.

There are many more such details, but Kuroto didn’t pay much attention to it and started to speed-read it to make sure he gets the basic gist of Kirigakure’s situation, as he proceeded further, suddenly his expression changed as a certain piece of unexpected information caught his attention.

Yagura has stated that recently, the Toad Sannin Jiraiya personally went to Kirigakure, of course, his visit was extremely secretive so barely anyone knew about it, but more than his visit, the purpose of his visit was what surprised Kuroto.

Jiraiya went to Kirigakure representing Sandaime Hokage, and the purpose of his visit is to invite Yondaime Mizukage Karatachi Yagura to the third Gokage Summit.

The reason Yagura wrote this letter to Kuroto is to ask whether he should participate in the third Gokage Summit that is to be held secretly in Konoha.

Kuroto was surprised by such a piece of information, and muttered to himself with a doubtful expression, “The village is going to hold a secret Gokage Summit? I didn’t receive any news about it.”

Kuroto was doubtful, and in order to clear his doubt, he quickly opened the letter sent to him by Pakura.

Similar to Yagura, Pakura firstly detailed the recent changes in Sunagakure, to which Kuroto only paid a little bit of attention. Then there’s the news about her recent action, which was to adopt an 8-year-old boy by the name of Itsuki as her son, to which Kuroto quirked his eyebrow because he did not expect to hear such a piece of information.

‘The fact, that Pakura went as far as to adopt this Itsuki boy must mean that he has something extraordinary.’ Thought Kuroto, and his doubts were soon cleared because Pakura then describes that this boy named Itachi seems to be able to use Magnet Release Kekkei Genkai.

“Huh? This is unexpected. If I remember correctly, there was no boy who could use Magnet Release at this point in time in Sunagakure. Only Gaara, who could control Sand, and it was many years after the fourth Great Shinobi War, that the boy named Shinki was adopted by Gaara, and that boy Shinki too could use Magnet Release, but that’s another issue, what’s important now is, where did this boy come from?” muttered Kuroto with a doubtful expression.

Since Pakura, the Godaime Kazekage has adopted him, so obviously she would have checked his background, which obviously includes no connection to the Akatsuki spies lurking in Sunagakure, therefore, Kuroto is not that worried that him being a spy or anything, what’s Kuroto worried about is that fact that this kid did not exist in the canon at all, and yet here he is.

“What could be the logical reason for the reason he did not appear in the canon but is present here?” muttered Kuroto while thinking to himself, and there is one theory that seems plausible, in the Canon, this kid might have either died while performing some mission or, he might have died during one of Gaara’s rampage.

Gaara’s rampage obviously killed many of the Sunagakure people, and it wouldn’t be strange if one of his rampages also killed this kid named Itsuki before he had the chance to awaken Magnet Release.

But since, Gaara has been taken in by Kuroto, and since one of the rampages was also stopped by Kuroto and Shisui, so it’s quite plausible that this kid survived and later awakened Magnet Release.

“It seems likely, but I suppose I should still be careful, the appearance of an unknown element is clearly the work of butterfly wings, so it wouldn’t be a surprise if more of such elements appear over time. So, it seems that I must become more cautious.” After reaching this conclusion, Kuroto quickly went through the other information, before finally reaching the part that he wanted to read.

And as he expected, Sunagakure too received an invitation for the third Gokage Summit that is to be secretly held in Konoha. The one to pass this information to Pakura was none other than Elder Chiyo and Elder Ebizo who have recently returned to Sunagakure following the conclusion of the alliance ceremony.

After reading this information, Kuroto put aside the letter and thought, ‘So, Sandaime-sama really intends to hold Gokage Summit secretly in Konoha? And he has decided to not even inform the Anbu of such news, I mean it’s not that surprising considering how much of a serious blow the tri-Alliance suffered against Akatsuki at the War of Summit in Amegakure, but still..’

Kuroto was really relieved that he has the Mizukage and the Kazekage as his subordinate, else he might have never even learned of this news.

At the same time, Kuroto can also understand the thinking of Sandaime-sama. The failure of tri-Alliance consisting of shinobi from Konoha, Suna, and Kumo against Akatsuki, which even resulted in the capture of Ni’i Yugito, and the death of Yondaime Kazekage. Then the later reveal of the Yondaime Mizukage being secretly controlled like a puppet by Akatsuki, it has become a common understanding that the threat of Akatsuki is too great, at the same time, there is no telling who might be a spy of Akatsuki.

So, Sandaime doesn’t seem to want to take any chances.

This is why, the Gokage Summit, which used to be held openly in the past can only be carried out in secrecy nowadays for the sake of the safety of the Gokage, and the five great Shinobi Villages.

After all, if Akatsuki were to learn of the news of the Gokage Summit, and also learn of the location that the Gokage Summit is being held, there’s no guarantee that they wouldn’t take advantage of it. Either they can directly attack at the location that the Gokage Summit is being held which would either result in the death of Gokage, or them becoming a hostage in the hands of Akatsuki, or, Akatsuki could use their absence from their villages as an advantage and attack the villages to capture the Jinchuriki at the same time destroy the entire village.historical

Akatsuki certainly has the power, so it’s obvious that the Gokage will be careful against them.

“It seems that Sandaime hasn’t been sitting idle these days.” Muttered Kuroto, as he is really surprised by political maneuvers Sandaime has been making these days.

Firstly, Sandaime drew the surrounding small Shinobi Villages, including Kusagakure, Takigakure, Otogakure, and tied them to Konoha’s chariot using the Alliance Ceremony that was held a few days ago. With this political maneuver of his, the pressure on the borders of the Land of Fire would decrease significantly, allowing Konoha to shrink its strength to be deployed on important locations.

Subsequently, Sandaime sent invitations to the other four great Shinobi Villages for the purpose of secretly holding the Gokage Conference.

Kuroto has to especially admire the timing that Sandaime used.

From a general perspective, Sunagakure has formed an Alliance with Konoha and taking into account the fact that both Sandaime Kazekage, and Yondaime Kazekage died at the hands of Akatsuki, so Sunagakure would definitely agree to participate in the Gokage Conference in order to figure out a way to deal with the Akatsuki Organization.

Then there’s another fact that Kumogakure’s Ni’i Yugito is in the hands of Akatsuki, whether she is still alive or she has died is not yet known, so the probability of Kumogakure participating in the Gokage Summit is very high, if anything, Yondaime Raikage would definitely want to take revenge.

On the Kirigakure side, Yondaime Mizukage Karatachi just got rid of the control of the Akatsuki Organization, so his reputation has been harmed terribly, at the same time, he must bear hatred towards Akatsuki Organization for controlling him, and for what Akatsuki did to Kirigakure. Therefore, it’s quite obvious that Kirigakure too would agree to participate in the Gokage Summit.

Among the five great Shinobi Villages, four have high chances to participate, and the Tsuchikage Onoki must also realize this thing, he would be under tremendous pressure, and wouldn’t have any other choice but to agree to participate as well.

From all these political maneuvers of Sandaime, it can be seen that he has come to the realization that when fighting alone, no village is strong enough to resist the Akatsuki Organization. As such, he has started to weave a big net for the Akatsuki to trap them inside it.

And for this purpose, neither the Anbu members, Anbu Squad Captains, and not even the Anbu Commanders were informed of this news of the Gokage Summit. The fact that Anbu, the most trusted subordinates of Hokage were not informed goes to show the level of secrecy this Gokage Summit holds.

Kuroto naturally has no objection to it, in fact, he is quite happy to see these changes.

Therefore, he immediately wrote a reply to both Yagura and Pakura, instructed them to participate in the third Gokage Summit to be secretly held in Konoha, and after putting the letters inside the mouth of the two crows, he sent them towards the two villages.

After dealing with this matter, Kuroto put his attention to the Scrolls of Kaguya Clan that Yagura sent him as per Kuroto’s instructions.

These scrolls not only record the Family tree of the Kaguya Clan for over a millennium but also records various secrets and Forbidden Jutsu of the Kaguya Clan. At the same time, many of these scrolls also record millennium-year-long research, exploration, and understanding of the Kaguya Clan towards their Kekkei Genkai Shikotsumyaku.

While going through them, Kuroto soon stopped on a particular part that intrigued him, “The Blood Exchange Ritual?”

According to the millennium-year-long research of the Kaguya Clan, they have found that that the more talented a shinobi of their clan, the more prone to early death he would be, and the more frequently he used Shikotsumyaku, the shorter his life span would be.

Such a thing obviously made the elders of the Kaguya Clan frown deeply. Because more than the deaths in battles, the members of their clan would die of unnatural causes due to some kind of sickness.

This cause of unnatural deaths due to some unknown sickness later came to be known as the Curse of the Kaguya Clan.

Determined to find the reason for the curse, the bodies of the dead individuals were inspected, and after much research and postulation, Kaguya Clan came to figure out the cause of this unnatural death.

They were surprised to find that their bodies contain a certain type of Toxin-like substance, and this ‘Toxin’ is the cause of their unnatural deaths.

And this ‘Toxin’ actually takes birth in their bones and would later travel to all the body parts, thus, quickly spreading its effects all over their bodies.

Their guess was only confirmed when they found that the more talented a shinobi, and the more he uses Shikotsumyaku, the higher the percentage of this toxin present in their body.

This also made them understand if they don’t use Shikotsumyaku, then they are unlikely to suffer from this unnatural illness, as the toxin would neither take birth nor spread to the whole body.

But Shikotsumyaku is the foundation of the Kaguya Clan, the members of Kaguya Clan are heavily reliant on this Kekkei Genkai of theirs. Using Shikotsumyaku was also their only option to survive through the chaotic years of the Warring States Era.

Upon finding these results, the Kaguya Clan did what any Clan would do in their situation, they blocked this news and forbid it to be ever disclosed to anyone. Other than the Patriarch and a few select elders no one would ever come to know of this.

In order to, have time and opportunity to break through the Curse of the Kaguya Clan, the members of Kaguya Clan traveled from the Land of Fire where they once lived, and where the conflicts were prevalent to the Land of Water, an isolated country with not so much conflicts at that point in time.

Of course, they did not stop their research all this while and delve all their efforts into finding a cure to solve this curse of theirs.

Many inhuman experiments were carried out, there were many sacrifices of not only those of the Kaguya Clan but even those of the other Shinobi Clans, even the innocent non-shinobi and common folks were also sacrificed in order to find a way to cure the Curse of the Kaguya Clan.

But unfortunately for them, they never found a cure that could permanently solve this curse.

Although they did discover the method through which this Toxin spread throughout the body, it was obviously through their Circulatory system, which means the blood was the carrier of the Toxin.

While keeping this in mind, Kaguya Clan soon reached the conclusion that as long as the blood is purified or changed; the volume of toxins in the body would be greatly reduced and the shinobi after the blood exchange would be able to live more compared to before.

This was a temporary solution and it greatly helped in ensuring the survival of the clan. And a few decades later, the Kaguya Clan also discovered an herb that if refined in a particular manner into a medicine, and used in conjunction with the ‘Blood Exchange Ritual’ it would further increase the effects of the Blood Exchange Ritual.

Now they could increase their survival rate significantly and less prone to unnatural deaths, but the story doesn’t end here.

Of course, the ‘Blood Exchange Ritual’ proved to be effective, but it was not without its own disadvantages. Aside from the normal issues related to Blood Infusion that one has to deal with, one more problem started to emerge. The infused new blood, since it didn’t belong to the Shinobi, himself, would cause some drastic effects on some specific parts of the brain, turning the members of the Kaguya Clan, into savage, bloodthirsty, battle-hungry, and ferocious from what they used to be.

Initially, the members of the Kaguya Clan did not have such a character, they were calm and peaceful people, much like those of the members of the Hyuga Clan, but this ‘toxin’ and its subsequent effects including the treatment changed them over time into what they became feared for, and what became the cause of their near extinction.

But until the very end, they did not find any permanent solution to cure the Curse of the Kaguya Clan.

“It turns out that even after researching for centuries, the Kaguya Clan couldn’t find any solution, no wonder Orochimaru-sama, who had much less time and much less knowledge about the Kaguya Clan was unable to solve Kimimaro’s unknown illness.” Muttered Kuroto in realization.

But after understanding this, Kuroto’s expression turned into a frown, he hurriedly left his study and went to the Incubation Room.

In the Incubation Room, two clones are being cultivated in two Large Incubation Capsules (Nutrition Tanks).

Although Kuroto obtained ten samples of successful cell fusion, Kuroto’s current finances obviously don’t allow him to cultivate all the ten clones at once, so he can only make do with what he has. Therefore, Kuroto chose the best two samples, the ones that seemed most active, and cultivated them into Clones.

And even if Tenseigan Chakra is used to catalyze the cultivation process, the growth of Clone will take at least a month, so the current two Wind Clones inside the Large Incubation Capsules are only about the size of a palm.

Staring at the two Clones, Kuroto muttered inwardly, “If the whole Kaguya Clan suffers from the Curse of the Kaguya Clan, then I am afraid that even my Wind Clone will not be spared.”

The source of cells for the Wind Clone comes from Kimimaro, and Kimimaro seems to have already started to suffer from the curse of the Kaguya Clan, so that means certain traces of Toxin must have been present in the cells Kuroto collected.

And no matter how many times Kuroto may have filtered these cells, there is no guarantee that it would have been washed away, so it is obvious that his Wind Clone too will suffer from the Curse of the Kaguya Clan.

And according to the research, only a Blood Exchange ceremony can decrease the volume of that Toxin in the body. What’s more important is that the blood must belong to the members of the Kaguya Clan, should be of the same type and the person whose blood is being used in the ritual must not be suffering from the Curse of the Kaguya Clan at the time of donating the blood.

In other words, it must be someone who is a member of the Kaguya Clan, but shouldn’t have awakened Shikotsumyaku, no other option would work.

And according to the information given to him by Yagura, other than the Kimimaro and Takashi, no members of the Kaguya Clan exist anymore, and even if they somehow exist somewhere, finding them would be much more difficult than finding a needle in a haystack, so that option is no longer useful for Kuroto.

‘I must think of some way to cure the Curse of the Kaguya Clan.’

While thinking about how to cure the Curse of the Kaguya Clan, Kuroto suddenly thought, ‘What exactly is this toxin? And why is it that it only affects those who use Shikotsumyaku? And most importantly, if this toxin is related to the Kekkei Genkai of the Kaguya Clan, then why aren’t the members of the Kaguya Clan immune to this toxin?’