Chương 46: Puppeteered.

With no work on a Sunday, Haruto spent all his time calmly sitting at home perfecting his skills against Edward, only going to sleep when he was finally mentally exhausted and couldn't move an inch anymore. But once during the day, Haruto went out of his way to visit the Nara drug store to buy himself a batch of herbs necessary for his medicinal baths.

Additionally he ended up getting sold on a few medicinal pills that restore chakra by the crafty Nara store owner, but reasoned that it was for helping him train until he gained more physical energy. Only, later when Haruto was deep asleep-'Haruto!!!'

'Haruto!!!'

'Wake up!!!' Haruto's eyes snapped wide open. But he was no longer inside his body. Instead he was inside the template inventory space.

"What happened?" Haruto asked confusedly. He looked around and quickly realised his body was already moving, without his explicit control.

"You were inside the template inventory space all of a sudden. But you were unconscious so we got worried." Edward said with a relieved sigh once he saw Haruto was awake and fine. Suddenly a screen popped up in front of everyone to show them exactly what was going on outside. Haruto was currently wearing his clothes after a quick shower, changing from the nightly pajamas to something more suitable for work, clothes that he'd barely used on the Sunday he went to visit outside for his herbs.

There was a soft strange mark glowing on his forehead but it soon sank under his skin and vanished without trace, as if it never existed.

"I believe Hiruko sneakily applied the puppet jutsu on you anyway." Edward noticed with a frown.

"Can you not control your body at all Haruto?" Megumin asked with worry. Haruto frowned and tried to feel his body and after a while came up with a conclusion.

"I think I can with some effort… but it wouldn't have been possible without me awakening here inside the template inventory space…"

"Then what're you waiting for! Break out of Hiruko's puppet jutsu before he makes you do something you'd regret!!" Megumin advised but Haruto locked gazes with Edward, both of them thinking the same thing.

"No… it's better we let this go on… this way if there's an opportunity we can turn on Hiruko when he least expects it and take him down." Haruto explained patiently, causing a bulb to glow in Megumin's mind as her mouth opened in surprise. If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation. But there was no time for any more questions after that, after all, Haruto's body was already stepping outside the house.

While looking at the screen quietly Haruto also paid attention to the movement of chakra within his body. Perhaps copying the jutsu was unrealistic since he didn't know how to cast it, but maybe he could glean into some of its secrets through the effects it was having on his body right now. The chakra circulation was concentrated in his head, forming a short but complete loop.

'What a remarkable jutsu… it can control a human to do such a complex task…'

'Are the steps pre-recorded and embedded as a command within the jutsu or does the jutsu rely on the body to automatically deduce the right steps to perform to reach the goal assigned?'

'Or is Hiruko controlling my body remotely?' The answers to these questions were not something Haruto could gain in a short time, especially since on the outside his body had already reached the R&D department. Instead of going to his desk first however, Haruto went straight to Hiruko's office. After knocking on the door, when he heard Hiruko's voice allowing him to step inside, he opened the door and walked in. Surprisingly, in the room were people of a rather high stature.

"Greetings Hokage-sama." Haruto's body instantly said to Hiruzen while looking at the person with the most authority first. Along with him were the Uchiha clan head Uchiha Fugaku, a few ANBU along with a prisoner kneeling on the floor with seals drawn all over his limbs, to seal chakra Haruto guessed. Since Haruto shouldn't have known who Fugaku was, he didn't greet him, instead he simply looked at Hiruko who quickly introduced the boy.

"This is Haruto Hayashi. He's my new assistant, he will be helping me in this experiment." Hiruzen's eyes gleamed secretly but he said nothing, internally however he was a little worried, 'Hopefully Haruto-kun doesn't come in the way during this operation.' With the short interruption out of the way, Hiruko continued talking, "As we were discussing earlier, I plan on using Tatsuya Uchiha here to further my research on Transferring kekkei genkai between people without rejection."

Fugaku nodded and looked at Tatsuya with clear hatred in his eyes, his three tomoe sharingan spinning slowly as he spoke venom filled words.

"Please make it as painful as possible… I don't want him to enjoy any of his last moments on this planet." Although everyone here was acting since Tatsuya Uchiha hadn't done anything wrong and was simply being used as bait to trick Hiruko into revealing the location of his real research lab where he'd likely kept the kidnapped children, Hiruzen still felt surprised by Fugaku's acting skills.

'Truly… the Uchiha are formidable… is this the power of his Mangekyou sharingan?' Hiruko nodded and spoke in a harsh tone, "I've read his file… you can leave him to me… I will make sure he doesn't die throughout the experiment until it concludes." Hiruzen instinctively wanted to interrupt and save Tatsuya Uchiha from all this pain he was about to go through but held back…

Tatsuya had already been briefed on what was about to happen and he had agreed to suffer for the good of the village, for the future of the kids of the village. It was in shinobi like this that Hiruzen saw the will of fire, promising to himself to make sure that Tatsuya Uchiha was fully compensated once this mission ended.

'The Uchiha are definitely not as bad as Danzo makes them out to be…'

'Teacher, I'm sure you'd be proud of me if you saw what I was doing.'

"Then that wraps up everything…" Hiruzen said calmly, standing up and making way for Fugaku to leave with him, along with all the ANBU. Of course, in the shadows, ANBU who were supposed to spy on Hiruko still remained. Hiruzen wanted to give these ANBU a new mission, to keep Haruto safe, but there was no way to contact them without tipping off Hiruko at such close proximity so he stayed silent.

"Can't you break out of the puppet jutsu now and blame it on Hiruko?" Megumin asked but both Edward and Haruto shook their heads.

"There's no proof." Haruto explained, "Even if I know that Hiruko was the one that cast it, I don't have proof. And it'll only tip off Hiruko from doing whatever he's about to do." So Megumin remained quiet and the three of them paid attention to the outside world with rapt attention.

"Oh my… you're looking at me with such hate…" Hiruko said with a smirk as he looked down at Uchiha Tatsuya.

"It almost makes me want to kill you on the spot." To Hiruko this moment felt validating of his path in life. Especially since the strong and powerful Uchiha was currently under the feet of his weak and less glorious self.

'No! I'm not weak anymore! After obtaining that seal, there's no longer any ninjutsu that can hurt me!'

'Except genjutsu… but once I obtain the Sharingan even that will no longer be an exception! I will become a truly invincible shinobi!!'

'Then all that remains is absorbing the souls of the other shinobi as planned! And once I do so, I will become an immortal ninja!! A feat that not even the great first Hokage was capable of!'