Chapter 324 — The Experiment
After giving Kimimaro a full day of rest, Uchiha Kei and the others quickly returned to their busy routines.
Stealing a bit of leisure time was fine—
but forgetting your main work entirely just to slack off?
Unacceptable.
Yet the little outing Kei and Hyūga Ayaka had taken Kimimaro on…
inevitably spiraled out of their control.
Once the gossip-hungry villagers learned the three of them not only went shopping together,
but also watched a movie,
and ended the evening at a barbeque restaurant—
The rumors spread like wildfire.
As for Kimimaro?
People mentioned him, yes,
but since no one recognized him as anything special,
most assumed he was just some random Uchiha brat tagging along.
Across Konoha, speculation surged.
After all—
Uchiha Kei was far too eye-catching a figure for people not to pay attention.
To ordinary shinobi and civilians,
he was a member of the village's upper echelon,
the Head of the Military Police.
Young, only fifteen this year.
A war hero.
A prodigious Uchiha with immense power and an even greater shroud of mystery.
Someone like that, with high status, talent, and good looks thrown in for good measure—
how could people not care about his private life?
Those with political power—yet lacking familiarity with Kei personally—were even more uneasy.
They could plainly see how highly the Fourth Hokage valued him.
Some stubborn traditionalists still clung to the outdated belief that Kei was merely "Uchiha Fugaku's proxy."
But whether or not that was true didn't matter.
The influence and power he represented were undeniable—
and deeply unsettling.
And Hyūga Ayaka?
Even though she was a branch family member,
she was still—at the end of the day—Hyūga.
If this rapidly rising, increasingly formidable Uchiha clan…
were to align themselves with the ever-stable, politically influential Hyūga clan…
Then the massive political and economic force created by that alliance would be terrifying.
The kind of alliance that could make anyone in high office develop headaches.
Especially now—
when the Fourth Hokage was still in the middle of building his own faction.
A new superpower bloc forming right under his nose…
That was a future that no one wanted to imagine.
Normally, the Uchiha and Hyūga clans had a notoriously poor relationship.
As the two great dōjutsu families, their rivalry wasn't vicious,
but it was relentless—neither side ever yielded ground.
But Uchiha Kei and Hyūga Ayaka were… different.
They had once belonged to the same squad—
a combination that shouldn't have existed at all.
Uchiha and Hyūga simply did not get paired together.
Yet the two of them, along with that newly-emerged Senju boy with the old clan's legacy,
formed what could only be described as a walking disaster trio on the battlefield.
They had cycled through more squads than anyone could count;
every team they joined eventually got wiped out.
Except for them.
Not once.
Not twice.
Again and again, those three alone survived.
How they survived, no one investigated too deeply.
Maybe it was luck—
at least, that's what the mission logs suggested.
Their records were filled with miraculous survivals and unbelievable margins.
After so many reshuffles and so many dead teammates,
the three of them naturally gravitated together.
Maybe it was simply fate meeting the right people.
Whatever the reason, once they formed a squad of their own, it finally stayed.
And the three of them kept surviving—
almost unnervingly so.
Of course, not everyone escaped unscathed.
Their jōnin instructor, Fujuku Kōhei, ended up hospitalized for quite some time.
Having faced death side by side more times than most veterans,
Kei and Ayaka had forged a strong bond—rooted in experience, struggle, and mutual reliance.
And now, considering Kei's current position,
Uchiha Fugaku would naturally want to satisfy him.
As for Hyūga Hiashi?
He had made his intentions even clearer.
The very fact that he ignored the traditional rivalry and sent Ayaka straight into the Police Force said everything.
But one had to admit—
Hyūga Hiashi's foresight was terrifyingly sharp.
Back when everyone dismissed the Police Force,
he believed in it.
And look at it now—
the Police Force had become one of the most powerful divisions in Konoha.
Hiashi's return on investment was enormous.
One only needed to look at the Fourth Unit of the Police Force to see that.
If both clan heads decided to subtly push things along—
to actually support this potential union—
then the political behemoth that would be born…
would be unstoppable.
Even the thought of it was enough to give the village's leadership a migraine.
---
The outside world argued loudly,
whispering, guessing, and fanning every ember of rumor.
But to the two people at the center of it all—
Uchiha Kei and Hyūga Ayaka—
it all meant nothing.
As they had both said:
they neither cared nor bothered with such things.
The only person who was truly driving them crazy…
…was Imai Kenta.
---
"Hey, seriously—are you two really together?"
Imai Kenta didn't even know how many times he'd asked at this point.
He wanted to stop—
but he physically couldn't.
"Can you shut up already, you idiot?"
Kei had long since started treating him like a buzzing mosquito,
but Ayaka finally snapped.
Her palm slammed against the table with a sharp crack as she stood up,
cold eyes boring into Kenta:
"How many times have we explained it?
How many more times do you intend to ask?
Keep hovering around like some brainless fly,
and I will consider adding something special to your serum.
Or maybe I'll just adjust your dosage.
Will that finally satisfy you?"
"S-sorry…"
Cold sweat formed on Kenta's forehead.
"It's not my fault! I didn't believe the rumors at first, okay?
They started half a month ago, and I ignored them.
But they just… kept going!
Every day!
So I finally had to ask!"
Kenta came in every two weeks for his serum injection,
and each time he also submitted a physical status report.
Clearly, today was that day again.
And Kei's "scandal" with Ayaka had been spreading nonstop for the same two weeks.
Without the slightest sign of dying down.
Even Kei himself was baffled.
He simply hadn't bothered explaining—
didn't even consider it important.
Who could've guessed the rumors would explode like this?
Was everyone in the village this bored after the war?
---
"What's the point of asking useless questions?" Kei yawned lazily.
"With her personality?
Who knows what poor fool could ever endure her?
Don't drag me into that."
"Oh please—like you're any better." Ayaka didn't even look at Kenta as she stabbed the needle directly into his arm.
Kenta turned pale.
Was that injection method even safe?!
But Ayaka ignored him completely.
"You think slapping on a fake image and wearing a mask lets you hide your real nature?
Live with someone long enough—your mask will fall apart.
You think you can pretend for a lifetime?"
"I'm begging you two," Kenta groaned, staring fearfully at the syringe in his arm,
"can you not do this while I'm being injected?
I could die here!
And seriously!
You're fifteen, she's sixteen, and I'm already seventeen and not worried at all—
so what the hell is your problem?
Honestly, why don't you two just get together already?
One lunatic, one psychopath—
for the love of sanity, stop torturing me, the only normal person here!"
Kei and Ayaka both turned their heads toward him at the same time.
Stared for a long moment.
Then silently looked away.
Ayaka's expression sharpened, and her hand grew even rougher in technique—
but luckily Kenta was a trained shinobi.
Anyone else would've howled from that kind of injection.
After she finished and quickly checked his condition with her Byakugan,
she tossed the matter aside and returned to her work.
Kenta could only sigh.
By now, he was used to being treated like this.
"How's Kimimaro's progress?" Kei eventually asked as he walked over.
"Has his kekkei genkai awakened?"
Half a month had passed,
and a lot had happened.
Kei had already arranged for Kimimaro to be adopted by Uchiha Tezuka and Uchiha Jing—
a middle-aged couple delighted at the chance to take in a child.
Partly because Kei asked,
but mostly because they genuinely wanted a son.
Meanwhile, Ayaka had retrieved the preserved tissues of Hyūga Hiashi and Hizashi,
extracted the cells,
and begun fusing them with Kimimaro's.
The experiment had been running for two weeks now.
But Kei had been too busy reorganizing the Police Force,
and what time he did spend here
went toward pushing his Mangekyō and refining Susanoo.
So he had no idea how far Ayaka had gotten.
Ayaka glanced at him, then held up a vial of serum.
"Yesterday—right before you took him home—I managed to achieve a stable fusion between two cell groups in vitro.
The results were good.
After removing the devoured cells,
this is the serum I produced."
"So you're planning to inject him now?"
Kei examined the serum and nodded.
"What's the success rate?
Or rather… are you confident?"
"Confidence only comes after experimentation," Ayaka replied calmly.
"But I can tell the boy is already at the threshold.
So…"
"So all he needs is a little push," Kei finished for her.
"To awaken it—right?"