Chakra Thirst

In an unknown location, Takara broke the Kubikiribocho into several pieces and soaked it in a ceramic vessel with blood, returning it to its original state as rumors said. Setting it aside, he tried submerging the broken pieces and upon seeing them also being restored, he felt satisfied to confirm with his own eyes that his plan was correct.

This was one of the two items he had been wanting to obtain to perfect his puppets, a metal that did not require maintenance or replacements, since the battle itself provided the necessary resource to sustain itself.

Not only that, it seems that no one was smart enough to realize that breaking and restoring the sword was essentially an unlimited mine of metals. If Kirigakure could equip all its ninja with weapons made of this metal…

"If I make alloys by buying a little chakra metal and mixing it with this absorbent metal, I'll finally be able to obtain a quality metal instead of having to settle for common iron."

And since he had emptied the hideouts and the money of the mafioso dwarf, his pockets had received a substantial capital injection to improve his strength. He was not going to "recover" that money for Sunagakure, after all, he could report that the Konoha ninjas had arrived first and the infamous Kakashi was among them. There were witnesses.

What chance did a genin have against a man like that?

It was already enough that he was able to obtain Zabuza's sword.

The puppets he built were essentially made of wood, metal, and ceramic parts as fundamental pieces, so replacing those materials with better ones translated into more useful tools at his disposal.

He checked the clock on the wall of his hideout and saw that it wasn't long before the agreed-upon time for his meeting.

He hated being unpunctual.

"Nakime," called Takara, causing the puppet that was silently and immobile next to him to suddenly move when a noxina crawled inside its large eye hidden by its long black hair to provide it with chakra from the central circuit.

The sound of the biwa string resonated and a door appeared, allowing Takara to leave his hideout and with another sound, the door vanished.

"Orochimaru has behaved himself in the last meetings, I hope he does not think that I will lower my guard because of it and I will present myself in person," Takara reflected on the imminent meeting with another Sannin, this time, to talk about business.

For his second objective, he needed something that was solely in the hands of two people in the ninja world. At least, that he remembered.

Danzo or Orochimaru.

And since Danzo might not be as "honest" as Orochimaru, relatively speaking, he decided to contact Tsunade's former teammate. There is also the fact that Orochimaru would not take long to kill Rasa to take his place, so he would consider doing him a favor.

With Nox's abilities, Takara could prepare laboratory machinery whose precision made the most advanced ones that Orochimaru was capable of buying seem ridiculous without much effort.

So, he got the serpent's attention and had managed to make three deals with him so far, all without attending personally and mainly demanding money or materials to try to perfect his creations.

"I suppose it's time to get out that puppet..."

Using both hands to perform a bird sign, a seemingly common puppet, without even clothes or characteristic features appeared in front of Takara standing.

Clenching his fist, he struck the head of the puppet and it began to tremble as its figure deformed until it replicated Takara's appearance with complete accuracy.

"You know your goal, Surface, don't disappoint me," Takara said to his reflection.

"Of course," responded the puppet with the same posture, attitude, and voice, being a perfect imitation.

Takara took a scroll out of the ninja bag and gave it to the puppet, who swallowed the scroll to keep it safe before heading to the agreed-upon point.

Watching his puppet leave, Takara considered whether he needed to make backup plans. This deal with Orochimaru was critical to his plans and if he didn't achieve his goal, he would have to start looting the serpent's hideouts to get what he needed.

But he hoped it wouldn't come to that.

Orochimaru was somewhat his counterpart, while he was an expert in mechanisms, the Sannin was an expert in biology who could be very useful in future plans.

Should he reveal to him the existence of the Gelel Stone?

While Takara reflected, at the meeting point...

Orochimaru was hidden in the shadow of a tree, waiting for the arrival of his "favorite" client for the last few months. When one of his subordinates brought him the new machine to his laboratory, he was immediately amazed after comparing it with the one he acquired just a month ago.

Three times more accurate, saving countless months of repetitive work!

His interest was immediately aroused and when he found out that the other party wanted to do business actively with him through the black market, he was delighted. His efforts required time and countless specimens, but without the right tools, all his efforts could be fruitless or frustratingly slow.

He easily found out the identity of the seller and was surprised to discover that he was doing business with a Suna genin and unconsciously compared the machines with the puppets he had seen Sasori use during his time in Akatsuki.

The talent disparity was evident.

He considered kidnapping him and forcing him to become his subordinate, providing a "safe" environment for him to supply him with more machines for free and better, but his current plans encompassed all his time and both were conducting a mutually beneficial commercial relationship.

It was even easier than his time dealing with Danzo then.

Today's deal was the most peculiar of those he had conducted so far, as in exchange for a whole new laboratory, he did not need to deliver a single ryo. Instead, it was going to be practically free from his side.

Just a forbidden technique and some Hashirama cells.

He simply couldn't figure out why he wanted them, especially given the strange requirements the brat asked for.

The first time he heard the request, he thought he would try to do as Danzo and try to merge the cells to obtain the Wood Release of the First Hokage. He was going to advise against it, not out of concern for the other party, but because he wanted to continue to obtain quality machines for a long time.

But contrary to his thoughts, he told him that he didn't care if the cells were unstable, he only demanded that he give him the cells with the highest concentration of Senju lineage possible.

Orochimaru was perplexed because even in his time in Konoha he had to dilute the concentration to achieve relatively stable results to handle, although the face always appeared…

Asking him to give the purest concentration was no different from suicide. The moment they were injected into the body, the person would irremediably transform into a tree and there would be no way to save them.

But he still found it interesting. It was much easier for him to concentrate the lineage than to dilute it, especially because he still had some cells taken directly from the body of the First Hokage. It could be said that he hardly had to make an effort.

The same thing happened for the forbidden technique.

The other party didn't want a more powerful version, they only wanted one where control was total and absolute, even if they had to weaken the technique for it, they didn't care in the least.

How could Orochimaru refuse a deal with such a margin of benefit?