"Don't worry! I wouldn't joke around with my own body. If anything feels wrong, I'll come to you right away," Uchiha Mei said with a cheerful smile.
Uchiha Yuan nodded, gave a few more reminders to Uchiha Mei, and then turned to leave with Hyuga Asana.
"Asana, you checked on Senior Mei's condition earlier, right? Can his eye recover?" Uchiha Yuan asked after they left Uchiha Mei's home.
"Uchiha Mei's physical condition is quite good. He's not even forty yet, and there's a good chance his Sharingan can be restored."
Hearing Hyuga Asana's answer, Uchiha Yuan breathed a sigh of relief.
Back during the battle in the Land of Bears, Uchiha Mei had been sent by Orochimaru to investigate the Fourth Mizukage. In the confrontation, he lost that eye.
Though Uchiha Mei had repeatedly emphasized that losing the eye had nothing to do with Uchiha Yuan, Uchiha Yuan had never forgotten that Uchiha Mei was only threatened by Orochimaru because of him.
So Uchiha Yuan had always held onto the guilt about Uchiha Mei losing his eye.
He had always wanted to help Uchiha Mei recover it—and also to kill the Fourth Mizukage to avenge him.
Now, it seemed Uchiha Mei's eye could finally be restored.
As for the Fourth Mizukage, Yagura, he was still under Obito's control, and Uchiha Yuan already had a plan for dealing with him.
Soon, once he brought out the "mini-Ten-Tails," Uchiha Yuan would make his move.
Speaking of the mini-Ten-Tails, one couldn't help but mention Uchiha Yuan's "experimental subject"—Naruto Uzumaki.
By now, Naruto was one month old. Uchiha Yuan had visited him twice in that time.
As expected of the protagonist of Naruto, Uchiha Yuan could clearly sense the powerful vitality inside Naruto after only a month.
Uchiha Yuan was quite fond of Naruto. In his previous life, he had watched many anime, and his favorite shounen protagonist was Naruto Uzumaki.
There was even a time, when Uchiha Yuan hit rock bottom in life and didn't know what to do, that he saw a video about Naruto on a small video platform. It inspired him and gave him the courage to move forward again.
So Uchiha Yuan carried a unique emotional attachment to this little guy, Naruto.
He didn't want to experiment on Naruto when the boy was only a month old. He thought he'd wait a while—until Naruto's condition stabilized.
And just like that, a year passed.
Before he knew it, Naruto was one year old.
For Naruto's first birthday party, Minato Namikaze specially invited Uchiha Yuan and Hyuga Asana.
At Minato Namikaze's home, there were seven people: Minato and his wife Kushina, Uchiha Yuan, Hyuga Asana, Minato's mentor Jiraiya, his student Kakashi Hatake, and of course the birthday boy, Naruto.
After celebrating Naruto's birthday, Kushina coaxed him to sleep, then joined the others in Minato's study.
"Can't believe it—Naruto is already one year old!" Jiraiya sighed.
"Yeah! Time flies," Kakashi added.
"You've worked hard, Kushina," Minato said to his now fully homemaker wife.
Hearing this, Kushina shook her head. "Just seeing Naruto grow up happily like this, I'm already satisfied. That night with the Nine-Tails… I almost thought… Never mind! Let's not talk about that. Really, thank you all—Yuan, Asana."
"You're too kind, Senior Kushina! I didn't do much!" Hyuga Asana quickly waved her hands.
"I also—"
"Kid, don't be so modest!" Jiraiya interrupted Uchiha Yuan. "Honestly, I really owe you. If it weren't for you, Kushina would've been in serious danger that night. I wasn't there as her master and almost let tragedy happen. You didn't just save Minato's family—you saved me too."
"Lord Jiraiya, you're exaggerating."
"I'm just telling the truth! By the way, kid, I heard you're planning to create a controllable tailed beast?"
"Yes. A quarter of the Nine-Tails' chakra is sealed in Naruto. I plan to use that chakra as the base, blend in the chakra from the other eight Tailed Beasts, and use Yin-Yang Release to create a new consciousness—so that it can grow up with Naruto."
"That way, Naruto will have a tailed beast companion raised alongside him," he explained.
"Why blend in chakra from the other eight Tailed Beasts? Can't you just use Yin-Yang Release on the Nine-Tails' chakra directly?" Kakashi asked.
"I'm afraid that won't work. Fragmented chakra from the Tailed Beasts can't generate consciousness. Like Kinkaku and Ginkaku—they were swallowed by the Nine-Tails and ingested its flesh and blood, gaining its chakra."
But this chakra didn't make them lose their minds—in fact, they could freely control it. That proves the chakra itself no longer contained the Tailed Beast's will.
In other words, fragmented chakra can't develop consciousness. To give a Tailed Beast a new will, one has to create a new Tailed Beast."
"Then why involve the other eight?" someone asked.
"That relates to a secret of the Shinobi World. In the past—"
Uchiha Yuan revealed the origin of the Tailed Beasts to the others.
Aside from Hyuga Asana, who already knew, the other four were utterly shocked.
"So that's how Tailed Beasts came to be? Kaguya, the Ten-Tails, the Sage of Six Paths… am I hearing mythology?" Kushina muttered.
Jiraiya, after the initial shock, seemed to recall something and sighed. "This kid's probably right. Some things from the Great Toad Sage and Mount Myoboku back this up."
"So, Yuan, by merging the Nine-Tails' chakra with the others and using Yin-Yang Release to generate a new consciousness, you're trying to recreate the Sage of Six Paths' process when he split the Ten-Tails, right?" Minato asked.
"Exactly. That should allow for the creation of a brand-new Tailed Beast—one not part of the existing nine, and close to the Ten-Tails."
Everyone fell silent after Uchiha Yuan's explanation.
After a while, Kushina finally asked, "Yuan, the Ten-Tails is so dangerous… Naruto won't be harmed, right?"
"Don't worry! Without the Ten-Tails' body, the Tailed Beast in Naruto has nothing to do with the real Ten-Tails," Uchiha Yuan answered firmly.
"In that case, when are you starting?" Jiraiya asked.
"In the next few days."
(To Be Continued...)