It was indeed Mizuki's counterfeit jinchuriki who arrived. As he spoke, his opponent tossed a scroll toward him. Mizuki caught it midair and tucked it away.
"Perfect timing. Things are about to start soon, and we'll have a big fight ahead. Be careful not to die. Making another isn't hard, but it would waste too much time."
"Don't worry. I value my life way more than you do~"
...
When Mizuki reappeared in the stadium seating area, the battle below was already reaching its peak intensity. The crowd was in a frenzy, roaring with excitement from every corner of the stands.
Upon seeing Mizuki arrive, Kakashi, who had just finished his "emotional reunion" act with Might Guy, gave a nod in his direction.
"Hmm? Wait, something's off," Kakashi, known for his sharp observation, suddenly realized this Mizuki seemed slightly different from before.
"Not disappointed at all. You found me out so quickly, Kakashi," Mizuki said with a smile.
"This is truly an amazing technique," Kakashi commented as he pulled down his forehead protector, revealing his Sharingan eye. He carefully examined Mizuki. "This isn't Shadow Clone, nor is it a simple Transformation Jutsu. How did you do it?"
Even more surprising was what happened next—when Kakashi looked behind Mizuki, he saw an identical copy standing there: "Not an illusion either. Just standing right behind you. Unless you're paying particularly close attention, you'd never notice where you actually are~"
This Breath-Sealing Art pushed to its peak had nearly perfectly concealed all detectable presence, far beyond what mere invisibility techniques could achieve. It caused people to instinctively overlook Mizuki's presence completely. Except for that faint chakra fluctuation, even Kakashi might not have immediately seen through it. Unless someone had highly refined sensory abilities, they might have someone standing right beside them and not feel a thing.
"So this is the Breath-Sealing Art you taught Sakura?" Kakashi asked in astonishment. "This doesn't sound like just a simple chakra-storing technique anymore, does it?"
Mizuki smiled lightly. "Kakashi, for any ninja, when a technique is mastered to perfection, it becomes something truly extraordinary."
Even seemingly basic Ninjutsu like the Basic Techniques can become formidable skills when perfected. Take Sanshouo Hanzo as a classic example—his mastery of poison alone was enough to overpower most shinobi across the ninja world, leaving even the young Sannin kneeling before him in awe.
"And besides, this technique was invented by me personally. I know exactly how to utilize it. If Sakura wants to reach this level, she'll need extensive practice."
"That's true," Kakashi agreed with a nod. "Still, if you could completely eliminate that slight trace of genjutsu around your body, this would become an absolutely incredible ninja art."
"It's not that simple," Mizuki shook his head. Any technique faces its biggest challenge during the transition—either coming into being from nothing, or vanishing back into nothing.
Don't be misled by the name. It was never originally developed as a sealing method tailored specifically for surveillance or tracking purposes. From the beginning, Mizuki had developed it primarily as preparatory training for Sage Mode. Its stealth capabilities, full-body defensive traits, and non-verbal genjutsu and ninjutsu applications were merely secondary functions—useful supplementary tools to keep in reserve. But investing excessive effort into researching these aspects as fundamental applications would ultimately become counterproductive, missing the point entirely.
Seeing that Mizuki didn't have much to say, Kakashi stopped pressing him further. He pulled down his forehead protector and, while watching the match below, asked, "What exactly are you sneaking around for? It seems like the enemy clearly sees us while we remain unaware of their position—hiding yourself is pointless anyway."
"Sneaking around?" Mizuki complained, "This is to enhance our combat strength, alright? Not everyone's as strong as you. I'm just a Chunin."
"Oh right, well speaking seriously, what exactly is this?" Kakashi pointed at the Artificial Jinchuriki, "It definitely isn't something ordinary people can do, right?"
It was neither a Shadow Clone nor a Puppet, and it wasn't related to Genjutsu either. The ninja world had countless illusions and techniques involving clones, but few were able to produce flesh-and-blood bodies that could be manipulated with such ease.
"It's rather impolite to point like that, Kakashi," the Artificial Jinchuriki said with dissatisfaction over being spoken about like an object.
"Hmm?" Kakashi's surprise deepened. "What kind of thing did you make? It's incredibly strange—does it even have its own consciousness?"
Mizuki's original body replied, "I'm not sure how to explain it yet. Maybe similar to a Shadow Clone, except it lasts longer."
Indeed, since significant progress had been made in Breath-Sealing Art, chakra consumption had been greatly reduced. Although the fundamental problem regarding the Artificial Jinchuriki remained unsolved, its endurance improved significantly, eliminating the need to constantly inject chakra and drastically increasing its practicality.
For a long time, Mizuki—who lacked clan backing or foundational strength—had hoped to possess a reliable avatar to handle situations he couldn't personally appear in. However, this Artificial Jinchuriki still fell short of his expectations. Relying on techniques like [Sealed Shadow Clones] was ultimately not a sustainable solution.
After making progress in the study of spirit and soul, especially following the incident with Hayate Gekko, Inoichi Yamanaka's views on consciousness had given him new ideas. Though Mizuki didn't fully agree with the concept of splitting one's mind, from his past life he already knew of advanced methods that served a similar purpose.
Techniques like [Transform into Three Pure Beings] or [Sever the Three Poisons] were too far-fetched and mystical to consider. After all, someone born and raised in a modern society—under the red flag—would never truly understand those esoteric principles. Still, certain theories offered useful references; some aligned surprisingly well with phenomena in the ninja world. What interested Mizuki most was a theoretical lifeform known as an [Information Integration Thought Entity].
When he first heard of this wildly imaginative theory about sentient beings, Mizuki initially dismissed it as mere fantasy. But after coming to the ninja world and learning more over time, he gradually came to believe there might be extraordinary potential behind this idea.
Tailed Beasts, creatures originating from the God Tree, were essentially collective manifestations of humanity's negative emotions. They shared many similarities with these seemingly science-fiction-like entities despite appearing utterly incomprehensible.
However, Mizuki's goal wasn't merely to recreate another collective-will creature resembling a Tailed Beast—he'd already achieved that. Even something as crude as the construct at Four Seasons Flower Shop demonstrated this possibility.
Mizuki wanted to understand how tailed beasts could be created in accordance with human will. He planned to reverse-engineer this principle and apply it by treating himself as a collective will, using chakra to project numerous subordinate spiritual wills. These would then be sealed into empty bodies through Artificial Jinchuriki methods to create true "Mizuki Jinchuriki."
Although the idea seemed implausible, obtaining even a small amount of tailed beast chakra would certainly prove useful.
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