Catching a fish that was released is really a loss!

Chapter 123 Catching a fish that was released is really a loss!

Tsunade stood in front of a bone door, looked inside, and suddenly the view opened up before her.

This is a huge underground space, at least half the size of a basketball court, with a towering dome and several extinguished lampstands embedded in the cave walls.

This should be the core area of ​​the base, complete with experimental tables, culture tanks, operating tables, bookshelves—but at this moment, most of it is empty.

The culture tank contained only turbid liquid, with dried green and brown traces remaining on the walls, resembling crystals of some kind of nutrient solution.

A thin layer of dust covered the lab bench, and several broken glass tubes and old surgical instruments were scattered on the surface.

All the scrolls on the bookshelf had been removed, leaving only a few blank rolls of paper and a few tattered books with key pages torn out.

"They've all moved away." Shizune looked around and said softly, her voice tinged with disappointment, "They didn't even leave behind a single useful piece of paper."

Tsunade didn't speak. She walked to a wall, raised her hand and touched the marks left on the wall. They were very new and not too old.

That was the location where the large culture tank used to be. The tank was removed, leaving only a few broken pipes hanging down, with dried nutrient solution crystals still remaining at the pipe openings.

Her fingertips slowly traced those marks, as if touching a memory that had been forcibly erased.

Her gaze lingered on those marks for a long time before she slowly withdrew her hand.

"That guy—he must have known we were coming."

Her voice was soft, devoid of emotion—not anger, not frustration, but a kind of anticipated, subtle resentment.

She should have been gritting her teeth, but her face only showed a calm, almost indifferent expression.

"Let's go." Tsunade turned around and walked in a certain direction. "There's nothing left here. Let's see what else is there elsewhere."

The three figures left the core area and continued exploring the other rooms.

Tsunade seemed to want to turn the entire base upside down, opening doors and inspecting each room one by one.

She didn't overlook the experimental area, storage room, archives, or even the restroom.

In a dark room somewhere underground, Izumi's skeletal shadow clone sat quietly in the darkness.

He closed his eyes, his hands forming a mudra, his aura almost imperceptible, as if he were one with the entire base.

He could hear everything clearly outside: Tsunade's footsteps, the cracking of her bone gates, the sound of puppets being shattered. He didn't move, nor did he make a move.

Let them go.

Anyway, this place is already empty.

Just don't go to the very bottom.

After half an hour.

The root squad followed another mine tunnel and found the true entrance to the base.

If the information obtained through illusion magic hadn't clearly indicated the location, it would have been almost impossible to discover it.

In front, behind the Still Water Hall, five figures silently slipped underground.

Their footsteps were so light they were almost inaudible, and they deliberately suppressed their breathing to a minimum; only the faint rustling of their clothes could be heard in the mine tunnel.

"There are signs of a battle!"

A Root ninja crouched down and picked up a broken piece of bone.

Fresh stone dust remained at the break point of the bone fragment, indicating that it had been shattered not long ago.

He brought the bone fragment to his nose and sniffed it, then touched the sharp edges of the broken end with his finger.

"It happened not long ago, no more than an hour ago."

Nue's gaze swept over the scattered bone fragments, and her brows furrowed slightly.

Broken bones were scattered everywhere—on the ground, on the walls, and even on the rock face overhead.

Some of them look like they were smashed by a blunt object with brute force, with broken bone fragments and irregular edges.

Some were precisely disassembled with sharp tools, with clean cuts and neat separation at the joints.

The methods were completely different, clearly indicating that more than one person was involved.

"Someone got here before us," Shisui said in a low voice.

His three-tomoe Sharingan spun slightly in the darkness, catching the traces of chakra remaining in the air.

The chakra auras were mixed together, including the cold chakra of the skeletal puppet itself.

There are also fresh traces of chakra left not long ago.

"Three people." Shisui closed his eyes, carefully distinguishing the auras. "Their chakra levels are all considerable, and one of them—it seems somewhat familiar."

He opened his eyes, the three tomoe slowly rotating, and uttered a name: "Kakashi".

Kakashi's brows furrowed even more.

Sakumo Hatake, son of Konoha's Anbu, was once a student of the Fourth Hokage and now performs missions under the Third Hokage.

How did he end up here?

"Chase!" Without asking any further questions, the order was given directly.

Five figures followed the trail of battle deeper into the area. They passed over the shattered skeletal puppets and traversed the empty experimental zone.

After crossing the remains of the bone gate shattered by Tsunade's punch, they finally arrived at the huge underground space.

No one is empty.

All that remained were scattered bones, empty culture tanks, and the traces left on the walls after the structures had been removed.

A faint scent lingered in the air, indicating that those people had indeed stayed there, and not long.

"I'm late." Shisui looked around, his voice carrying a complex emotion.

His Sharingan scanned the space, confirming that there was no ambush or sign of living people; those people had already left.

Nue crouched down and examined the footprints on the ground.

Three sets of footprints, with clearly discernible patterns on the soles of the shoes, extending towards the exit on the other side.

The edges of the footprints were not covered by dust, indicating that they had been made recently.

"They went that way." He stood up, gazing intently in that direction. "Follow them."

Shisui took one last look at the empty underground space before following closely behind.

Five figures disappeared silently into the depths of the passage, heading towards the other exit.

Their footsteps grew fainter and fainter until they were completely swallowed up by the darkness of the mine tunnel.

In the hidden final layer beneath the base, there are still many scrap items that were never intended to be moved.

However, because of the arrival of Tsunade and the Root ninjas, he moved all his things here.

Izumi's skeletal shadow clone stood there, his brows slightly furrowed, sensing Tsunade's relentless pursuit above through the rock wall.

He couldn't understand how the other party dared to come to his door.

They had already been controlled once, and they knew the difference in strength.

But she still managed to break in with that stubbornness. Should we say she was courageous or just reckless?

-

He tried to use some of his hidden methods to remotely influence Tsunade's actions, but found that there was an unfamiliar sealing technique inside her body.

That was the work of the Konoha Sealing Team. It seems the Third Hokage gave her some kind of protective measure, shielding her from his direct control.

He wasn't surprised by this; given Konoha's resources, it was only a matter of time before they developed countermeasures of this caliber.

But once he touches something like that, it's not difficult to dismantle it.

However, he is currently only a skeletal shadow clone, while his true body is far away in Loulan, and he cannot spare the time to deal with it.

"Let her go," the shadow clone muttered to itself, closing its eyes again. "As long as she can't find this place—"

Before he could finish speaking, a dull, loud noise suddenly came from above—BOOM!

Gravel and dust fell from the dome, causing the entire underground space to tremble slightly.

The shadow clone suddenly opened its eyes and looked up. A crack had appeared in the rock wall above it, and the crack was rapidly widening, with small pieces of rock beginning to fall in large chunks.

The shadow clone's expression changed.

"That crazy woman—"

He gritted his teeth and quickly retreated, avoiding the area where the falling rocks were most concentrated.

I didn't catch any big fish, only a few small ones, which I had already caught and released.

It seems I can only play along with them and see what gives them the audacity to come looking for him.

Above the last layer.

Tsunade stood in what appeared to be an ordinary storage room, her gaze sweeping over the surroundings. She tapped lightly a few times before fixing her gaze on a spot on the ground.

She didn't hold back and attacked directly, unleashing a tremendous force that caused a slight tremor and the collapse of rocks.

With her control over chakra, she precisely controlled her strength, keeping the destruction within a certain range.

Her right fist was still in the throwing posture, and the pale blue chakra light on the fist had not completely dissipated.

She smashed a huge hole in the ground, and behind the hole was not rock, but a deep darkness.

"As expected, there's a hidden layer." Tsunade snorted coldly, patting the stone chips off her hands. "It's well hidden."

Silent leaned over and peered into the hole; it was pitch black.

"Lady Tsunade, it seems very deep down there."

"We'll find out how deep it is once we go down and see." Without the slightest hesitation, Tsunade lifted her foot to jump down.

Kakashi quickly stepped forward and stopped her, saying, "Lady Tsunade, I'll go down and scout ahead first."

Tsunade glanced at him, but did not refuse, and nodded slightly.

Kakashi took a glow stick from his ninja tool bag, lit it, and threw it into the hole.

The glow stick tumbled and fell in the darkness, illuminating the path below—a rather wide passage, its destination unknown.

Kakashi calculated the depth to be about fifteen meters.

Without further hesitation, he leaped down, using the rock walls on both sides of the passage as cover, and landed steadily on the ground, picking up the glow stick.

He looked up and shouted, "It's safe, you can come down now!"

Tsunade followed closely behind, jumping down directly. When she landed, her knees were slightly bent, and she was completely unharmed.

Shizune, holding Tun Tun, jumped down with a bit of nervousness, but landed just as easily.

After the three of them steadied themselves, Kakashi looked around and spotted the brazier. He formed hand seals and unleashed scattered flames to ignite it, illuminating the passage.

This is a wide corridor, with a heavy iron door every few meters on both sides of the wall, and the door is marked with a number.

At the end of the corridor, a larger space can be vaguely seen.

The floor, walls, and ceiling are all rough rock surfaces, but they have clearly been reinforced.

"This is the real bottom line," Tsunade said in a low voice, her gaze sharpening.

She stepped forward and pushed open a series of iron doors, behind which were some storage rooms and rest rooms, filled with a jumble of junk.

Broken culture tanks, discarded experimental equipment, piles of bone fragments, and some metal parts whose purpose is unclear.

There was nothing of any use, nor any sign of life.

But Tsunade's intuition told her that there was something deeper here.

She walked to the end of the corridor, pushed open the last iron door, and behind the door was a huge circular hall.

The dome is over ten meters high, and the surrounding walls are covered with densely packed sealing incantations.

In the very center of the hall, a massive figure crouched silently.

That was a puppet.

Its entire body is made of yellow sand, covered with black sealing magic patterns. It is huge, with thick limbs and a long tail trailing behind it.

Its shape resembles a raccoon dog, no, it should be said, it resembles a miniature tailed beast.

One tail! ?

Tsunade's pupils contracted slightly, and she immediately shook her head inwardly. It couldn't be the One-Tailed Beast; she hadn't sensed any life force either.

Remembering that the other party was skilled at making puppets, this was probably a puppet.

But—it's not an ordinary puppet; an ordinary puppet couldn't possibly possess this kind of aura.

It's likely that guy attacked not only Konoha but also Sunagakure, obtaining the One-Tailed Beast's chakra to create this thing.

"This is—" Shizune covered her mouth, her voice trembling.

"Step back." Tsunade's voice became low and serious. She clenched her fist, and chakra condensed on her fist, emitting a more intense light than before.

The puppet's head slowly turned, and the crimson light in its eye sockets suddenly intensified.

It stood up, its limbs on the ground, its tail held high, and let out a low, booming sound, like the roar of a wild beast.

The sound echoed in the rotunda, causing dust to fall from the rock walls.