Root's training continued day by day. Yako maintained his usual calm as he fulfilled his role as jōnin instructor, gathering intel quietly as he went.
Root had recently pulled another four-year-old child from the orphanage to fill the vacancy left by Kato Shizune.
Seven days later, Danzo had mastered the Contract Seal of the Tongue-Curse. He branded all twenty children with it.
Each child's tongue bore a curse mark: two Yin flares and four Yang flares.
Yako thought to himself, 'Danzo... You'd never expect this, would you? I've got a sliver of the Uzumaki bloodline.'
The curse seal Danzo regarded as his trump card would inevitably be broken one day—by little Yuka, third-generation scion of the Uzumaki.
When it came to sealing techniques, the Uzumaki were the real deal. Legitimate, male-line inheritors. Danzo was a counterfeit—a matriarchal mimic.
The Contract Seal of the Tongue-Curse—hexagram Kan over Qian—was structurally based on Dùn from the sixty-four hexagrams of the Book of Changes.
Uzumaki sealing techniques like the Four Symbols Seal, Eight Trigrams Seal, and this very curse mark all seemed linked to the cosmology of his previous life's Yin-Yang, Four Symbols, Eight Trigrams, and Hexagrams.
Yako suspected that these seals inherently required Yin-Yang Release, not the 'unorthodox' kind Kyoi used on him every night, but true Six Paths–level Yin-Yang chakra.
The Four Symbols Seal was one of the core techniques of the Uzumaki Clan. He'd find time to learn it from Yuka.
The Contract Seal of the Tongue-Curse made it impossible for the branded to speak any mission-related information. Even if Danzo ordered them to assassinate the Hokage, any captured operative—whether tortured or dissected for intel—would give up nothing.
They became pure, unthinking weapons. It didn't matter if they were truly loyal to Danzo—so long as they completed their missions and leaked no intel, that was enough.
They were tools. Nothing more.
Uchiha Itachi once said: Every jutsu has a weakness.
Danzo placed absolute trust in those he'd cursed with the tongue seal. If Yako and Yuka could break it, they could feed him false information—turn the game on him entirely.
After finishing training with Yamanaka Ruri and the others, Yako occasionally dropped in to observe C drilling the children.
Today was anatomy training.
C had dragged over a dead test subject from Orochimaru's lab and laid the corpse out on the training grounds.
He ordered the four-year-olds to dissect the body and remove its heart using their own methods.
After giving the order, C noticed Fox standing nearby and walked over.
"Captain Fox, Root is going to become much stronger."
"Well then, congratulations to you all," Yako replied dryly.
He couldn't help adding, "The kids are terrified of the corpse. Look—some of them are crying so hard it's dripping from under their masks onto their feet."
C said coldly, "Ordinary villagers in Konoha live blissful lives. They never have to touch this kind of cruelty. But for shinobi, and especially Root shinobi, cruelty is our norm. They must adapt to death and corpses—quickly."
Yako turned and left. He didn't want to watch anymore.
The full moon shone like a silver disk.
Another full-moon night arrived.
Yako contacted Yuka. She said the sealing scrolls she had didn't include a method for breaking the Contract Seal of the Tongue-Curse—but she could attempt to crack it.
Each version of the seal was unique to its caster and required their blood to activate. To reverse Danzo's version, Yuka suggested capturing a sample—one of the cursed—and sending them to her lab for analysis.
But a child? No. Even with all his morally grey operations in ANBU, Yako couldn't bring himself to send a child to be experimented on.
He would have to target C or K instead.
Given Danzo's paranoia, there was a real chance C or K had been branded too.
Yako planned to use one of the guardians of the Shimura Clan from the Land of Grass to lure either C or K out of the village—and then deliver them to Yuka.
But could Little White Ghost defeat one of Shimura's elite guardians?
Probably not. He wasn't strong enough.
Then… what if he handed Little White Ghost a Sharingan?
At his current strength, a double-tomoe Sharingan would be a significant boost.
The single tomoe increased perception. The second tomoe would amplify genjutsu.
If he could master some illusion techniques, it would push White Ghost's combat ability to a new level.
The only problem: if the Sharingan was exposed, Danzo would wage all-out war on the Uchiha.
And the clan would bear the consequences once again.
Then again, the Uchiha were doomed to be massacred anyway. Could things get any worse?
'No choice,' Yako thought. 'Let the Uchiha suffer a little more.'
Still, he had to be cautious. Yuka mustn't find out he had a Sharingan.
If she did, he'd say it was a transplant—to cover up his Senju lineage.
Yuka trusted him completely. She was far easier to fool than Tsunade.
Having decided, Yako retrieved a jutsu scroll from the division and searched for genjutsu techniques.
Genjutsu: Temple of Nirvana Technique—he'd already mastered this one.
Genjutsu: Binding Illusion—a paralysis-type technique.
Yako chose the Binding Illusion.
While waiting for intel from Yuka, he spent his days training new Root recruits and learning genjutsu.
He sometimes visited the outside of the orphanage.
A number of the children were missing—taken by Danzo to Root.
On the orphanage's little meal-planning chalkboard, a coded message had been written.
Yakushi Nonō was clearly trying to contact Fox again.
But Yako had no intention of responding.
The last time, her false intel had nearly gotten Yuka and the others killed in the Land of Iron. That was unforgivable.
Several days later, another code appeared on the chalkboard. It pointed to a location three kilometers away.
Yako recognized the place—it was a park.
Yakushi Nonō wanted to meet in a park?
He noted the code but ignored it, letting her stew.
Five days passed. The signal remained. Clearly, she was desperate.
That evening, Yako arrived at the park.
Beside a small lake, a black-rimmed girl sat alone on a bench.
Her long hair was silky, and from behind, her figure was graceful and slim.
She suddenly looked up, anxiety softening slightly as she sensed the new presence behind her, emerging from the trees.
"You finally came, Fox."
"What do you want?"
Yakushi Nonō heard the chill in his voice. His tone was cold, distant.
"Fox… why are you suddenly so hostile toward me?"
"You told me Root sent two agents to the Land of Iron. But four showed up. That false intel nearly got Lord Yellow Dog's hidden operatives killed. You jeopardized my mission. Of course I'm angry."
Nonō's thoughts raced. 'So Yellow Dog really did kill all four Root agents?'
Yellow Dog was the Third Hokage's son. If she tried to expose him, she'd be silenced instantly.
"I'm sorry, Fox. But that's the nature of intel work. I can't guarantee 100% accuracy. You, the one receiving the intel, are responsible for discerning its truth. I'm a spy—not the final authority."
Yako asked, "You risked coming back to Konoha, sent repeated meeting signals through the chalkboard… What is it you want?"
He wasn't afraid of Nonō.
Her weakness was the children in the orphanage.
People with weaknesses were easy to control. If Danzo could use her, so could Fox.
He just hadn't sunk that low—yet.
Nonō said, "Fox, there are some things… we can work together on."
"Do you know what happened to the seven children from the orphanage?"