New Batteries

It's funny and sad how people in the ninja world buy into the Fourth Hokage's excuse about how he "invented" the Rasengan when he was clearly lying to their faces.

Did they really believe he was inspired by the bijudama of the tailed beasts?

What do they have in common, that the attack is round? Please!

Only the gullible without brains would believe that, anyone can say it's practically a copy of the Heavenly Spin used by the Hyuga clan. In fact, the only difference is that instead of spinning the body, the technique is carried in the hand.

Nothing more!

But of course, then Minato would have been accused of copying Hyuga techniques and a tremendous media and political spectacle would have been mounted that wouldn't have been convenient for the future Hokage, so he just said he was inspired by the bijudama and everything was fine.

Are the tailed beasts going to sue?

"Do we have enough nutrient solution to keep the eyes in their maximum state?" Takara asked as she contemplated a pair of pale eyes in a jar, preserved in luminescent green liquid.

"Enough for two months," she heard next to her.

"Good, good..." Takara looked away from the eyes and at the Tsunade puppet, which still had blood-stained fingers. "Will there be any complications if I have them implanted by then?"

He wasn't stupid, he wasn't going to transplant Hinata's eyes in the middle of the exam even if he used a mask, it was better to wait later when everything had passed. As for the enormous chakra cost it would entail... by then, it wouldn't matter anymore.

"No, I'll make sure to avoid any degradation," Tsunade's puppet assured. "The risks should be minimal, especially if we two work together," she explained as she looked at the Shizune puppet next to her, standing silent.

"Minimal is not nonexistent," Takara wasn't going to take any risks without absolute guarantees.

There had to be something he could use.

Oh, there was someone perfect for this purpose!

Takara returned to the Forest of Death and checked the information from the noxins, barely needing a few minutes to secure Hinata's eyes.

"It's a bit far, but it won't be a problem," he said as he blurred into a blue shadow.

Arriving at his target barely half an hour later, he found a girl with reddish hair sitting next to the corpse of a large bear. It was clear that the bear had died recently.

The girl seemed to be dreaming of when she would get married, how many children she would have, and... nothing else.

It's hard to think when you're being stabbed in the neck and everything goes dark.

"Alright, now I would need a live sacrifice..." Takara looked around after storing Karin's body.

Kusagakure's comrades shouldn't be far away.

Takara followed the tracks and found the other two boys about five kilometers from where Karin "disappeared" without a trace.

"I can't kill them to use them in Edo Tensei, but would it matter if they were missing limbs?" he considered carefully. "I can always try and see what happens."

He sent Zabuza's puppet, and barely five minutes later, he was in his hideout, in a room with a large seal painted on the floor and one of the two Kusagakure genins in the center of the circle.

Takara applauded with his hands and began the forbidden technique.

"Edo Tensei!"

If the genin was already screaming desperately when he lost his legs, his screams got even worse as he was covered and reformed. Barely a minute later, Karin looked confusedly at her hands.

But before she could even question what happened and whether she was alive or dead, Takara sank a talisman into her head and Karin lost all sense of consciousness.

Takara sent a noxin to extract chakra from Karin, and upon seeing that the chakra from the abdomen was green, he felt satisfied that his idea was functional.

An unlimited source of healing chakra.

"Dr. Vegapunk Shaka," Takara called out as he instructed his puppets. "Connect the extractors to her back and start sucking as much healing chakra as possible at once. I want two full reserves for when I carry out the eye operation."

Then Takara decided to use the other Kusagakure genin to revive Hinata, suppressing her consciousness, connecting her, and turning her into Nakime's eternal chakra battery. This way, she won't have to depend on replenishing her chakra reserves with the noxins, as every time she opens or closes a door, the chakra consumption is not small.

"Should I move directly to the tower?"

He already got the Byakugan, an unlimited source of healing chakra, and an eternal chakra battery from Hinata. He also didn't lack the matching "Heaven" scroll he got from Shino's team.

While they are not his only objectives, he doesn't recall that there is anything more useful at the moment in the Forest of Death.

"If I meet Orochimaru, I could ask him where he left Naruto's team," he said to himself. "The jinchuriki can't disappear and the Uchiha is in the snake's sights, but if he took Sakura, it shouldn't be a problem, right?"

Although he can get chakra from the returned of the Edo Tensei without limit, there is a limit to the amount of output that can be extracted at once.

"That reminds me..." Takara turned his head to Vegapunk Shaka. "Grow trees from the redhead's body and then try to hybridize them with the Senju trees. I want to check the results in a month."

"Understood."

Takara left the hideout and advanced towards the tower while his noxins searched for Naruto's team or, by extension, traces of Orochimaru.

For better or worse, the group seemed to know how to hide during the first day.

And during the second day, when Takara returned to the Forest of Death after spending the night in his hideout, he may not have found Team 7, but he found something equally interesting.