Shino said, "This company hasn't been around that long, but its reputation has always been good, and employee has been excellent too. However, they've never had a habit of forcing employees to eat and sleep inside the company. This change is sudden and extrely abnormal. And it's only a select few employees. If they just weren't allowed to leave, fine, but they aren't even allowed visitors. That alone is enough to raise suspicion."
"The key is what this so-called 'important experint' even is!"
Kiba spoke up. "If they're testing new dical devices and having employees experience them firsthand, maybe you could explain it away. But that kind of thing doesn't need this level of secrecy. This company sells dical equipnt. Research is normal. As long as they don't leak data, it should be fine. But right now they're going out of their way to hide everything, like they're deliberately covering sothing up."
Hiashi said with the calm of an old hand, "If nothing else, those missing employees probably aren't coming back. Either the experints failed… or they were silenced."
Hiashi was here in Hinata's place.
Originally it should have been Team 8 following Kakashi, but Hiashi weighed the danger of the mission, and he also knew his daughter's personality. He understood she wasn't suited for this kind of assignnt.
So he firmly took her slot himself.
At this point, Hiashi no longer carried any regrets.
He had watched the clan break away from decay and start to soar. His wish had already been fulfilled.
Now his only wish was for his daughter to be safe and sound.
He'd been far too harsh on Hinata in the past, and the guilt sat heavy in his heart. He refused to let her take on a mission this dangerous, so he'd stepped in and forced the substitution, all so Hinata wouldn't be exposed to danger.
It was overprotective.
But it was also a father's love.
Kakashi ultimately didn't reject it. Shino and Kiba could understand too.
And just like that, Hinata was temporarily left behind by Team 8.
Kakashi said gravely, "I have a bad feeling. This so-called experint is absolutely not simple. Lady Tsunade and the others ordered us to dig deeper, which ans they sensed sothing off too. So this ti, without alerting them, we need to uncover Victor and this company's secrets."
Shino imdiately said, "I'll send a few insects inside to take a look. Maybe we'll find sothing."
Kakashi nodded. "Then we'll be relying on you, Shino."
Shino didn't waste words. He released a swarm from his body, but the insects scattered quickly, flying toward the company from different directions at different tis.
The others: When you said "a few," you ant… an entire army?
Still, no one stopped him. When it ca to insects, no one in this era understood them better than Shino. They let him handle it.
The enemy might be sharp, but surely they weren't on constant guard against bugs.
In an age like this, even high-end restaurants had flies. Let alone a company building. Shino's insects were tiny. The odds of them being noticed were naturally low.
Shino's scouting insects didn't have much intelligence, but they could record what they saw like caras. Once they returned to Shino, they would transmit those stored images back to him.
Back during the Chūnin Exams, Shino had cheated the sa way.
The four waited outside with patience.
Before long, insects began to return in waves.
Shino imdiately gathered them into his hand and started extracting the images they had captured.
In the footage, the employees were all working with their heads down. So were manufacturing equipnt. So were assembling. So were doing inventory. So were cleaning. There was nothing obvious.
Until the last handful of insects ca back.
Only then did Shino finally see Victor.
Victor, accompanied by a female secretary, entered a sealed laboratory. The insects slipped in after them too. The reason they hadn't returned for so long was simple: the door had shut, and they couldn't get back out.
But the recorded conversation between Victor and the secretary remained.
In the footage, Victor and the secretary stood before a massive glass container. Their mouths kept moving, clearly discussing sothing.
Shino imdiately used lip-reading to decode part of what was said.
And his expression changed at once.
Kakashi and the other two saw it and asked quickly, "Shino. What did you find?"
Shino adjusted his sunglasses. His voice was heavy. "Victor ntioned… fragnts of the God Tree. He's using God Tree fragnts for experints."
Fragnts of the God Tree?!
Kakashi and the others all jolted.
They hadn't expected the trail to suddenly connect to the God Tree.
What was the God Tree?
The Ten-Tails.
And yet Victor had Ten-Tails fragnts. Combined with how strangely he'd participated in the shinobi war before, it was obvious he'd gone to the battlefield for the Ten-Tails.
Back then, the Five Great Villages and great nations had been declared on by Obito, and they'd called on other countries, villages, and individuals to join the fight. They'd announced the enemy's plan: collect the tailed beasts and fuse them into the Ten-Tails.
They hadn't explicitly said "God Tree."
But anyone with a brain understood the Ten-Tails would be catastrophic. Even shinobi wanted to stay as far away as possible. For a re businessman like Victor to charge into the war, bold as steel, ant his goal was clear from the start.
He might have already known the Ten-Tails was the so-called God Tree.
And if he knew that, then soone inford him.
Kakashi's group didn't believe the Allied Forces' high command would go out of their way to tell so irrelevant outsider like Victor.
Which left only one possibility.
Kaguya's companion. The Ōtsutsuki hidden in the shadows.
It was still a hypothesis, but none of them were stupid. They all knew it was very likely.
Victor learned the Allied Forces were fighting the Ten-Tails, the God Tree. So he chose to join the war deliberately. After the God Tree ford, he quietly detached from the Allied Forces and successfully obtained fragnts.
After the war ended, he returned to his company and started experinting with those God Tree fragnts.
Was he trying to cultivate an entirely new God Tree from those fragnts?
The best experintal subjects were employees.
That was why certain employees were being forced to "live onsite," why they weren't allowed out, and why visitors were forbidden.
In truth, they were likely already dead from the experints.
Or they were being experinted on right now.
"That bastard!" Hiashi was furious. "Does he even understand how dangerous the God Tree is? He's trying to cultivate a new one and using living people as test subjects. He's courting death!"
Kiba, on the other hand, let out a breath. "This proves Victor knows the God Tree's secret. He's probably trying to grow a God Tree himself, then eat the chakra fruit and beco an existence like the Ōtsutsuki."
"And the one who told him the secret is likely Kaguya's companion, the Ōtsutsuki hiding in the shinobi world."
Kakashi's tone was decisive, but it had turned lighter. "We thought it would be like searching for a needle in the ocean. Instead, we found a lead this fast. If we can drag this Ōtsutsuki into the light and eliminate the shinobi world's hidden threat, then we can focus entirely on the Ōtsutsuki from beyond the skies."
With a discovery like this, they needed to report upward imdiately.
And to get more information, their squad would have to investigate even deeper next.
(End of Chapter)
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