Danzo counted his men.
He discovered that half of the elites he had brought were dead, and most of the survivors were injured. Not only had he gained nothing from this trip, but he had also lost the most valuable asset, the Mangekyo Sharingan. He was truly unwilling to accept this.
Unfortunately, the commotion caused by Earth Release: Open Earth Rising Excavation was immense. After Kurotsuchi left the tomb, she immediately sent a messenger hawk back to the Village to call for reinforcements. Upon hearing that his precious granddaughter had been attacked by Danzo within the Land of Earth, the Third Tsuchikage flew into a rage. Without waiting for his subordinates to assemble, he used the Lightened Boulder Jutsu to fly over a hundred miles to provide support.
The little old man was truly fuming. If anything happened to his precious granddaughter on his own turf, he would skin Danzo alive.
Danzo truly had no other choice; no matter how much he hated it, resentment wouldn't solve the problem.
He could only run, and he had to run fast.
The Third Tsuchikage was chasing him too closely, and the Ninjas of Iwagakure were converging from all directions, hunting him down like they were mad.
During the pursuit, Danzo was hit by two Dust Release attacks, and two more Sharingan on his arm closed forever.
He repeatedly ordered his subordinates to cover his retreat. By relying on the heavy sacrifices of the Root Ninja, he finally managed to successfully flee back to the Land of Fire with Sai's assistance.
Upon returning to the Village, he was both furious and anxious.
Iwagakure and Konoha Village were not allies; the two sides couldn't even be described as having a friendly relationship.
He wanted Konoha Village to attack Iwagakure, but he truly had no justification.
Say that his eye had been gouged out by Kurotsuchi? Jiraiya would surely ask, wasn't that eye of yours always blind? What happened? Suddenly you could see through it?
Say his Mangekyo Sharingan was stolen? At that point, never mind Jiraiya, even Utatane Koharu and Homura Mitokado would come to question him: when did you get a Mangekyo? How come we didn't know? What effect does this Mangekyo have? What, it's Kotoamatsukami, which can modify personal will without others noticing? Good, very good, we definitely need to have a long talk about this.
After thinking it over, he could only find a way to settle the score himself.
Iwagakure, having inherited the will of stone, had no intention of engaging in a war of words either. They acted without speaking; there was no need for condemnations or inquiries. They would just beat the crap out of Danzo on the battlefield later. The Third Tsuchikage set an even stricter training regimen for Kurotsuchi, telling her to train herself until she was stronger than a rock so she wouldn't fear any enemy! After that, it would be an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth!
Although Kurotsuchi's unauthorized actions resulted in the sacrifice of eight Iwagakure Ninjas, she had retrieved Deidara's Explosive Clay scroll and the Kamizuru Secret Technique scroll, and bravely thwarted Danzo's conspiracy, sending the cunning Konoha Ninja back in defeat. The Third Tsuchikage still commended her.
Kurotsuchi had completely forgotten about gouging out Danzo's eye. The Kamizuru Female Ninja, having been rescued, didn't think there was anything worth mentioning about what happened then either. The two sides were enemies; what was the problem with attacking an enemy's eye?
Kurotsuchi just felt like she had been in a daze for the past few days, her mental state was poor, and she fell seriously ill upon returning to the Village, taking a long time to recover.
On the other side, Ino transformed back into a spiritual body, wrapped the container holding the Sharingan in Chakra, and returned to her own body under the cover of the dead of night.
She shook her head and stretched her somewhat stiff body.
Kurotsuchi's habit of tensing her glutes and doing a leg split whenever she performed Ninjutsu was truly a bit uncomfortable. Just perform the jutsu properly, why do you have to do a split?
Now back in her own body, it took her quite a while to correct those bad habits.
"Kubisaki, I'm hungry, bring me something to eat quickly!"
Her body had been hungry for several days, and she felt especially weak upon returning to it. She was so hungry she was seeing stars, so she quickly had her summoned beast fetch food from the storage room. After eating something, she finally had the energy to take stock of her gains.
Uchiha Shisui's Mangekyo Sharingan!
Even though it was only the right eye, it was still incredibly precious.
Setting aside the value of the Mangekyo itself, she breathed a huge sigh of relief just to be free from the immense pressure of Kotoamatsukami.
As her performance became more and more outstanding, it was hard to guarantee that Danzo wouldn't set his sights on her, even though she was one of their own.
Ninja clans and individuals were different. The Yamanaka Clan were Danzo's subordinates, but she personally was not; on the contrary, she belonged to the Hokage's faction.
This sort of thing wasn't an isolated case. Back in the day, didn't Uchiha Kagami, Uchiha Shisui, and Uchiha Itachi all go against their families' wishes and join the Hokage's camp?
If Inoichi retired and Ino took over as head of the clan, the Yamanaka Clan would immediately shift to the Hokage's camp. Would Danzo have no thoughts on that? It wouldn't be too much for him to arrange a Kotoamatsukami, would it?
This Kotoamatsukami was too big of a threat to Ino, and unfortunately, her excellence couldn't be hidden. This eye was like the Sword of Damocles hanging over her head, making her worry about when Danzo might suddenly take a shot at her.
Now that the threat was removed and the eye had become her own property, her mood was exceptionally pleasant!
Without the injection of Dojutsu Power, this eye was just a normal Three-Tomoe Sharingan. Ino used her spiritual energy to sense it slightly and could feel the somewhat depleted Dojutsu Power within the eye.
For the Uchiha Clan, as well as the Hyuga Clan, Dojutsu Power was finite. They were born with a certain amount, and the growth of Dojutsu Power through training was very limited; it could be said that every bit used was a bit lost.
With Hashirama cells, or even higher-end Indra Chakra, the Dojutsu Power at the core of the Sage's Eyes could slowly recover.
And by that, it literally meant very slow recovery.
Ino's current recovery speed was already higher than those who had been transplanted with Hashirama cells. She had developed Hinata's Dojutsu Power once in the Land of Snow, and the missing portion of spiritual energy hadn't even been fully replenished yet, only recovering about three-quarters. One could imagine how slow this recovery speed was.
And that was just an ordinary Byakugan, not a Mangekyo Sharingan.
"What an interesting organ." She carefully studied this Mangekyo Sharingan.
The Byakugan of the Hyuga Clan and the Sharingan of the Uchiha Clan both existed independently of the individual.
The eyes stored Dojutsu Power, contained vital cells, and had their own Chakra pathway system.
Setting aside differences in bodily genes, theoretically, any Ninja who used Chakra could be transplanted with a Sharingan or a Byakugan.
Kakashi's Chakra reserves were always criticized precisely because he wasn't a Ninja of the Uchiha Clan; the Sharingan couldn't be deactivated and was constantly consuming Chakra, leading to his body being severely weakened.
Ino couldn't do it right now either. The Dojutsu Power in this eye was heavily depleted. Once transplanted into her, she would have to pay a heavy price in blood to replenish the Dojutsu Power, and the issue of being unable to deactivate it would also plague her, which would be a bit more loss than gain for her.
She didn't plan on a transplant, but the Dojutsu Power inside the Mangekyo couldn't be wasted. The Indra Chakra in her body could absorb this extremely pure Dojutsu Power, then convert it back into Indra Chakra, and finally use that Indra Chakra to perform genetic-level optimization on her body, or more specifically, her ocular organs.
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