It was another afternoon. Amegakure, uncharacteristically, had no rain.
Suzaku took a scroll from Sunagakure off a ninja hawk’s leg.
"Hanzō-sama." Suzaku presented the scroll.
Seeing the Sunagakure mark on the scroll, Hanzō’s brow furrowed slightly. He opened the scroll and quickly scanned its contents.
The scroll slammed against the wall and rolled onto the floor.
Suzaku was startled and looked at Hanzō. Hanzō took a deep breath, calming the surging anger in his chest.
"Summon the jonin for a meeting." Hanzō looked at Suzaku.
Suzaku immediately exited the office to notify the Jonin within Amegakure.
A crow perched on a pipe not far from the office pecked at its feathers, its dark feathers almost blending with the pipe.
A moment later, Hanzō’s office was filled with the Jonin of Amegakure.
Hanzō’s gaze swept over everyone. The scroll had already been picked up and was back by his hand.
"Just now, Sunagakure sent word, agreeing to sign a contract with us, acknowledging Amegakure’s status..."
Before Hanzō could finish speaking, a cheer immediately erupted in the office.
"We can finally end the war completely."
Listening to the laughter and cheers in the office, Hanzō did not stop them until they quieted down.
The Amegakure ninjas gradually realized a problem. If it were really that simple, why would Hanzō summon them for a meeting?
Sunagakure had always been greedy, how could they sign a contract with them so easily?
Hanzō handed the scroll to Suzaku and said, "Let every one of them see it."
Suzaku took the scroll, his gaze falling on the handwriting. His breathing suddenly became heavy, and the knuckles of his hands, holding the scroll, turned white. He wished he could tear the scroll into pieces.
As the scroll was being passed among the ninjas, Hanzō began to speak, "Sunagakure is indeed willing to sign a contract with us. The conditions they proposed are..."
"First, after the contract is signed, Sunagakure will extract one-tenth of the delegated missions undertaken by Amegakure."
As soon as these words were spoken, the Amegakure ninjas’ expressions all changed.
"Second, allow Sunagakure ninja to move freely within the Land of Rain, and allow Sunagakure ninja to reside in Amegakure, with no time limit."
"They are going too far."
"If we agree to their terms, does Amegakure still have any sovereignty left?"
"Is this still called Amegakure? We might as well change its name to Sunagakure."
The Amegakure ninjas could not hold back and began to denounce them one after another.
"We will not sign such a humiliating contract."
The voices of the Amegakure ninjas converged, the anger in their tone almost threatening to lift the roof.
Hanzō looked at them. He stood up, his hands clasped behind his back, his eyes as calm as an abyss.
"Then we fight. Prove to Sunagakure with our strength that the current Amegakure is no longer the Amegakure of the past."
"Post the scroll on Amegakure’s public notice board, so that all ninjas of Amegakure remember the humiliation we are suffering now."
"We will reclaim our dignity with our strength."
Various precise tools were laid out on the desktop, densely arranged by Haruki’s hand, gleaming coldly under the light.
Haruki stood in the center of the room, holding a screwdriver and a small hammer steadily in his hand. Before him lay a puppet that had taken on a rudimentary human form.
At this moment, the puppet’s chest cavity had been opened by Haruki, and its interior was filled with precise metal machinery.
The screwdriver turned, embedding a deep blue transparent crystal into the puppet’s chest cavity.
"What is this?" Yuma asked aloud.
Haruki placed a wooden board over the puppet’s chest cavity, twisted the screwdriver, and tapped with the small hammer.
"That is its heart." Haruki explained.
In fact, it was a cursed energy core.
"Heart?" Yuma looked at the puppet in surprise.
"Do puppets also have hearts?"
Yuma had never heard such a statement. But he did not know much about puppets, only having seen Hanzō fight against that female puppeteer from Sunagakure.
Since Haruki could create puppets, he must know more than him.
Haruki put down the screwdriver in his hand and nodded. "Of course."
Without a heart, how would his puppet move?
He looked at Yuma, pointing at the puppet’s eyes. "See, with a heart, doesn’t it come alive?"
Under Yuma’s shocked gaze, the eyes, embedded with black iron balls personally polished by Yuma, actually lit up with faint black light. It was as if a soul had been awakened.
Yuma’s breathing even stopped. He watched with wide eyes as the black light in the puppet’s eyes steadily focused, falling directly on Haruki’s face.
Haruki looked with anticipation at the puppet he had personally created.
The puppet’s gaze had no warmth, yet it carried a chilling penetrative power.
Previously, Haruki had worried about the failure of the puppet’s creation and had input a large amount of cursed energy into the crystal.
Later, as the puppet was perfected, he realized he had worried too much.
Cursed corpse was about imbuing cursed energy to control the puppet.
It might not be possible to create a perfect living being—after all, even Yaga only created Panda as a representative work—but it would certainly be possible to create an obedient puppet.
The various joints of the puppet’s body made extremely faint yet unusually smooth "click" sounds, as fluid as human breathing.
The puppet sat up under Yuma’s incredulous gaze, jumped off the table, and came before Haruki.
"I should give you a name."
Haruki glanced at the puppet, stroked his chin, and mused, "What should I call you? You are my first work..."
"Let’s call you Number One!"
Haruki was not good at naming things. When his skills improved in the future and he created more and more puppets, he could just call them Number Two, Number Three, Number Four...
He would not have to think of names anymore.
It was a permanent solution!
Haruki observed Number One’s facial expression.
Number One’s face was covered with dense metal brackets and connectors underneath, their density no less than human facial nerves.
Although the brackets and connectors were so messy that Haruki himself got them confused, at least they allowed Number One to control its face to make some simple expressions.
To Haruki’s disappointment, Number One showed no expression.
Had his facial nerve reconstruction plan failed?
Number One’s head moved up and down.
Yuma pointed at Number One, gulped, and tried hard to find the Chakra threads connecting to the puppet on Haruki’s fingers, but no matter how he looked, Haruki’s fingers were empty, and his fingers did not even move.
"Number One, shake hands with brother Yuma." Haruki gave the command.
Number One turned, walked briskly to Yuma, and extended its hand towards Yuma.
Although it could not speak or show expressions, it could understand human speech and obey commands.
Number One could be considered a success, barely.
100 PS = 1 Bonus chap
Read 30 Advanced Chapters on /astralicity