Hidden in plain sight

After explaining to Katsuyu that cleaning some puppets with acid wasn't a good idea and salvaging what he could (which wasn't much), Takara paid special attention to when Iwagakure might react, so he could dissolve and recycle Shukaku simultaneously.

For now, he still needed to find the rebirth eggs of Saiken, Kokuo, Kurama, Matatabi, and Gyuki.

The first three hadn't shown any signs yet, but seeing where the previous ones were, Takara had some ideas about where they might be located.

He only feared that some of them, like Gyuki's, might be deep in some ocean trench...

Takara unconsciously looked to the side, where several Katsuyu clones seemed to be discussing something among themselves, a rare sight given they were the same slug, and he had a crazy idea.

It seemed the slug sage had been around for quite a few years...

"Katsuyu, do you happen to know where the rebirth eggs of the tailed beasts are?" he asked, not expecting a real answer that could help him.

"I do," one of the Katsuyu clones nodded with complete nonchalance, leaving her conversation with herself. "In fact, I have one at the back of the cave. Do you want it?" she offered enthusiastically.

Takara was speechless.

Why did Katsuyu have one of the eggs, and why did she talk about it like someone giving away an old bike they've wanted to get rid of for a long time?

"The Sage of Six Paths was very rude, using me as a reference model to secretly create the Six-Tails, hoping I wouldn't notice," Katsuyu puffed smoke from her head, something Takara thought was only possible for an angry character in an animated series. "So I went to confront him, and he ended up giving me that thing. I thought I could do something interesting with it, but after a few centuries, I gave up and left it gathering dust."

"Don't you think Hagoromo might have tricked you into being the guardian of the egg?" Takara suggested, sure he had guessed the old man's trick.

"I thought of that, but I simply didn't care," Katsuyu somehow shrugged despite not having shoulders. "Besides, the Six-Tails hasn't died since then, passing from one jinchuriki to another constantly and never using its egg, so I don't think it cares after so long."

Takara didn't dispute Katsuyu's statement and urged her to show him the egg so he could seal it, marking one more off his list.

Katsuyu watched the sealing ceremony with interest but was even more surprised when Takara took out the Greed Jar with the Six-Tails inside and sealed it too, recycling the tailed beast for three days.

After all, although she had been with him most of the time in the Land of Water, she didn't know that the "target" back then was a jinchuriki when she left for a brief period.

"Takara-sama, aren't you worried the biju will go mad?" Katsuyu asked worriedly when it was all over. "And if you already had the tailed beast, why do you want its rebirth egg?"

That point puzzled her, as the egg, besides being incredibly tough and usable as a light source, didn't seem to do much else.

"It makes controlling the tailed beast easier," Takara admitted "generously" to the question. "This way, it becomes docile and can't cause trouble."

"I see, no wonder Hashirama-san took the Kyubi's egg back then, so that's why," Katsuyu nodded, understanding the utility of having the tailed beast's egg.

Though she didn't understand why Konoha didn't use it during the Nine-Tails' attack...

Maybe Kushina-chan was too weakened from childbirth to use it?

"Can we go back to the part where Hashirama took the Kyubi's egg?"

Takara was suddenly quite nervous. He thought he was the first person to target the biju eggs, and his plan depended on them!

But he didn't expect someone like Hashirama Senju, strong but with the brain size of half a gnawed walnut, to think the same.

Besides, his recent acquisitions even made him fear that the other eggs weren't behind barriers and were taken by others.

"In fact, it was under his wife Mito-chan's idea that he searched for and took the Kyubi's egg to use it to maintain Konoha's village barrier. I remember little Tobirama got very excited about the project, saying it would be one of the village's secret aces up its sleeve or something like that," Katsuyu recounted, casually revealing one of Konoha's greatest secrets.

"That... actually makes more sense than it seems."

He felt relieved to know that the idea actually came from Mito's mind.

Where did Konoha get the chakra to sustain such a multifaceted and advanced barrier twenty-four hours a day for so many years?

As far as he remembered, the Barrier Team only observed and controlled but didn't have nearly enough personnel to achieve such a feat.

And they had done a magnificent job of making people not notice that small but crucial detail; he had to hand it to them. It seemed everyone attributed the barrier's capability to some Uzumaki heritage, which wasn't entirely wrong but also not completely accurate.

"And do you happen to know where they put it?"

Katsuyu once again looked puzzled at her contractor.

"Actually, I do," she confirmed. "But didn't you just seal the Six-Tails inside you? I don't see how the Kyubi's egg could be useful to you. I remember Tsunade-sama told me the new jinchuriki of the Nine-Tails was the Fourth Hokage's son."

"It seems Tsunade really couldn't keep some things to herself," Takara thought, not surprised by this fact considering the woman's drinking habit when she was alive.

As for how Konoha would lose its precious barrier, Katsuyu stopped caring since the death of Tsunade and Shizune. Good for Takara.

"I told you about the commotion during the Chunin Exams, right?"

Katsuyu nodded.

"By the end of the event, the people from Otogakure took the Nine-Tails jinchuriki, and Konoha tried to rescue him later," he explained while weaving the facts to his convenience. "But the thing is..."

Takara took out the Greed Jar with both parts of Kurama inside.

"The Fourth Hokage's son died!?" Katsuyu opened her small eyes wide in shock.

"It seems so," Takara nodded, equally "shocked" by this fact. "I have no idea what those guys did, but I found the Nine-Tails' chakra in one of their underground lab facilities in the northern part of the Land of Fire. I think Orochimaru was caught off guard by Jiraiya in the middle of the process and went out to confront him to prevent him from discovering that place, but I accidentally found it."

"And you took the Nine-Tails while the two of them fought?" Katsuyu almost applauded her contractor's audacity but had no hands.

"Better me than Orochimaru," Takara shrugged, offering his most sincere thought.

"I understand, though it's a shame the boy had such bad luck, ending up in Orochimaru's hands. So, you could become a kind of double jinchuriki if you managed to get the Kyubi's egg from Konoha," Katsuyu wiggled her antennae while slithering from side to side, pondering this revelation.

The stronger her contractor was, the less likely she would end up like Tsunade, disappearing without a trace.

"So... where do I find the Kyubi's egg?" Takara insisted, wanting a clear target to search for.

"In one of the most visible places in Konoha," Katsuyu looked at her contractor and revealed the location. "The Hokage Monument Rock!"