Another afternoon had arrived.

It was rare for Ame to be free of rain.

Chiba removed a scroll from the leg of a ninja falcon, it was from Suna.

"Hanzō-sama."

He presented the scroll.

Seeing the insignia of Suna on the scroll, Hanzō's brows furrowed slightly. He unrolled it and quickly scanned the contents.

Bang.

The scroll slammed against the wall and tumbled to the ground.

Startled, Chiba looked at Hanzō.

He took a deep breath, suppressing the fury that surged within his chest.

"Summon the jonin for a meeting," he said, looking at Chiba.

"Yes."

Chiba immediately left the office to notify the jonin of Ame.

A crow perched on a pipe not far from the office pecked at its feathers, its jet-black body blending almost perfectly into the metal.

Moments later, Hanzō's office was filled with jonin.

His gaze swept over the group. The scroll had been picked up and returned to his side.

"Suna has just sent us a message, willingly agreeing to sign a contract recognizing Ame's status…"

Before Hanzō could finish, the office burst into cheers.

"That's great!"

"We can finally end this war!"

"…"

He didn't stop them, letting the jubilant voices ring out until the room gradually quieted.

The ninjas slowly began to realize something.

If it were truly that simple, why would he call a meeting?

Suna was notoriously greedy, how could they so easily agree to a contract?

Hanzō handed the scroll to Chiba. "Let each of them read it."

Chiba took the scroll, his eyes falling on the words written there.

His breath instantly grew heavy, and the joints of his fingers turned white from gripping the scroll, he looked as if he wanted to rip it to pieces.

As the scroll was passed among the ninjas, Hanzō began to speak, "Suna is indeed willing to sign a contract with us, but their conditions are… First, after the contract is signed, they will take ten percent of all missions Ame undertakes."

At this, the ninjas' expressions all changed.

"Second, they want unrestricted activity rights for their ninjas within the Land of Rain, and permission to reside in Ame indefinitely."

"They're going too far!"

"If we agree to this, does Ame have any sovereignty left?"

"Can we even call it our village anymore? Might as well rename it Suna!"

"…"

The ninjas could no longer hold back, one after another denouncing the proposal.

"We absolutely won't sign such a contract!"

Their furious voices rose together, nearly shaking the roof.

Hanzō looked at them. He stood up, hands clasped behind his back, his eyes deep and steady like an abyss.

"Then we go to war! We'll use our strength to show Suna that today's Ame is no longer what it once was!"

"Post the scroll on the public bulletin board of Ame. Let every ninja remember the humiliation we've suffered!"

"We'll reclaim our dignity with strength!"

---

On a table lay an array of precision tools, neatly arranged beside Shiratori, reflecting a cold glint under the lights.

He stood in the center of the room, steadily holding a small iron hammer and a screwdriver.

Before him lay a nearly human-shaped puppet.

The puppet's chest had been opened by him, revealing intricate metallic mechanisms within.

Carefully, he rotated the screwdriver and embedded a deep blue transparent crystal into the puppet's chest cavity.

"What is that?"

Tetsuma couldn't help but ask.

Shiratori placed a wooden panel over the puppet's chest, twisting the screws and tapping it here and there with a small hammer.

"That's its heart," he explained.

To be exact, it was a cursed energy core.

"Heart?"

Tetsuma looked at the puppet in surprise.

"Your puppets have hearts?"

He had never heard of such a thing before.

But he didn't know much about puppets, he'd only seen Hanzō fight that female puppet master from Suna once.

Since Shiratori could build puppets, he must know more than he did.

Shiratori set down the screwdriver and nodded. "Of course."

Without a heart, how could his puppet even move?

He pointed at the puppet's eyes and looked at Tetsuma. "Look, with a heart, doesn't it come alive?"

Under Tetsuma's shocked gaze, the puppet's eyes, made from the black iron balls he had personally polished, suddenly lit up with a faint black glow.

As if a soul had awakened within it.

His breath stopped.

He watched, wide-eyed, as the black light in the puppet's eyes gradually stabilized and locked straight onto Shiratori's face.

Shiratori looked at the puppet he had crafted with his own hands, his face full of anticipation.

The puppet's gaze held no warmth, but carried a chilling intensity that pierced through the air.

Back when he was worried the puppet would fail, he had poured an enormous amount of cursed energy into the crystal. But as the puppet neared completion, he realized he had been overly cautious.

The principle of cursed corpse manipulation was to infuse it with cursed energy and control it.

It might not be possible to create a perfect living being, after all, even the master of cursed corpse manipulation, Masamichi, had only produced one masterpiece: Panda.

But he could definitely create obedient puppets.

Each joint in the puppet's body gave off faint yet smooth clicking sounds, so smooth, it was like human breathing.

To Tetsuma's astonishment, the puppet sat up, jumped down from the table, and walked up to Shiratori.

"It's time to give you a name."

Shiratori looked at the puppet, rubbing his chin in thought. "What should I call you? You're my first creation…"

"Number One!"

"Let's go with Number One!"

He wasn't good at naming things.

Later, when his skills improved and he made more puppets, he could just name them Number Two, Number Three, Number Four…

Eventually, he wouldn't even need to think up names.

Truly a one-time effort for lifelong convenience.

"Does that name sound okay?"

He observed Number One's facial expression.

Its face was densely covered with metal frames and connectors, nearly as complex as human facial nerves.

Although the wiring was so chaotic that he himself often got confused, in theory, it should allow Number One to display some basic expressions.

But to his disappointment, Number One showed no expression at all.

"…"

Did that mean his facial nerve reconstruction plan had failed?

Suddenly, Number One's head moved.

Tetsuma jumped.

"I-It…"

He pointed at Number One and swallowed hard. He stared intently at Shiratori's fingers, trying to find chakra threads connected to the puppet, but no matter how closely he looked, his fingers were empty. They hadn't even moved.

"Number One, shake hands with Tetsuma-san."

Shiratori gave the command.

Number One turned, walked confidently to Tetsuma, and extended its hand.

Although it couldn't speak or make expressions, it could understand human language and obey commands.

That was barely enough to count as alive, wasn't it?