Miki looked at the dumbfounded samurai.
This guy's soul was still in his body, and because he wasn't dead yet, the soul within his body was resisting Miki's infection.
Miki, however, couldn't find the soul as a target for attack.
But, the soul, huh?
It truly was a profound and perplexing subject.
At this moment, Ryoma, having finished his treatment, got up from the ground.
"Take these guys back and restore the traces here to their original state."
"Ha," the two responded.
Shikuro led the samurai away; these guys were exceptionally obedient now, terrified of another beating.
Ryoma, meanwhile, began to clean up the traces.
Although this facility was abandoned, there was no guarantee that Anbu wouldn't reactivate it.
Miki wondered if she should establish her own private interrogation room.
But then she thought there wouldn't be much opportunity to use it.
She wasn't some perverted tormentor.
Currently, physical methods were used to destroy the mind, and the damage hadn't reached the depths of the soul.
Next time, she would try using psychological methods to destroy the mind, to see if it could indirectly harm the soul.
Experiments, after all, were a process of continuous practice.
Miki pondered what kind of method would be enough to drive someone insane.
Simple fear and pain were too monotonous; the best way was to create a psychological gap.
That is, to give immense despair, then give hope, and just when hope is finally obtained, discover that hope is an even greater despair.
It was a bit troublesome.
She would need to create a detailed script.
But Miki didn't seem to have the time, so after pondering for a while, Miki gave up.
She wasn't particularly good at torturing people.
Was there a simpler, cruder method?
"Yui."
Yui, who was following Miki, stopped, looking at Miki in confusion.
Miki could now directly perceive her emotions.
"Is there any way to quickly drive someone insane?" Miki asked.
"Make him pile sand, then knock it all down," Yui said.
All the effort for nothing?
While this method could also drive someone insane...
Most people would choose to give up.
If you can't hold onto the sand, you might as well scatter it.
"Never mind..."
Today's experiment ended here.
"You, come with me, Yui."
Without asking why, Yui followed Miki's steps.
Miki glanced at Yui's figure; the twelve-year-old girl was still a bit short, but at this rate, disguising her as herself wouldn't be difficult.
Although it would be hard to fool Hitomi and Naori.
"From now on, your codename is Shadow; you are my shadow," Miki said. "Now, I will teach you how to cultivate."
"Ha," Yui responded without question.
Miki's entire strength lay in her insects; being able to command the insect swarm was no different from Miki's own strength.
Subsequently, Miki granted Yui some permissions to the insect swarm.
Instantly, Yui entered a wondrous world, with an almost infinite number of star-like points connecting to Yui's brain from all directions.
The images before her eyes flashed and jumped rapidly.
A few seconds later, Yui screamed and collapsed to the ground.
The information overload had caused her to crash.
Seeing this, Miki stopped the permission transfer.
There was a small problem, but not a major one.
So it would cause a load on the brain? Miki had never felt anything special about it.
Except for Insect Sister's complex sensory system, which made Miki dizzy.
This meant that the insect swarm Yui could control was limited.
Miki walked forward, and behind her, Yui struggled to get up.
Hime's back is so cool!
With stars in her eyes, Yui quickly followed.
A few days later, Death Forest training ground.
Today was the day for the routine Nine-Tailed adaptive training.
It was still the same old routine of being locked in a dark room.
When Miki wasn't around, Tsunade would do some high-intensity physical training to temper her will.
After a period of bumps and scrapes, Tsunade had somewhat adapted to this training.
Which, in Miki's opinion, no longer had much of an improvement effect.
"Now I can stay in there all day without any problems," Tsunade said, hands on her hips, a little smug.
"Can you control six tails yet?" Miki asked.
Not yet.
Tsunade's face fell; once three tails appeared, she would begin to enter a state of blurry consciousness.
This training still had a long way to go.
Tsunade's willpower was not the problem.
The problem was the Nine-Tailed's lack of cooperation.
So, did it still have to go down the old path of communication?
Miki looked at Tsunade, deep in thought.
It wasn't that it was ineffective, just that the results weren't very satisfactory.
She could only rely on the slow, persistent effort of 'water dripping through stone' to make progress.
"But this kind of training is too boring," Tsunade complained.
"Want something more exciting?" Miki didn't mind, saying, "Sure, let's do something exciting."
"Great! Call Orochimaru and Jiraiya over," Tsunade said excitedly. "I haven't seen them in a while, and I don't know where they've been messing around! Only I'm working hard on my training!"
Originally, Jiraiya was called back to prepare for a village excursion, but after becoming a Nine-Tails Jinchuriki, the Third Hokage had blocked her from leaving on missions several times.
Now that Tsunade was out of the Hospital and training, she had nothing else to do.
She could be considered idle all day long.
"You just want to beat them up, don't you?" Miki said flatly. "Is that what you call exciting?"
"Exactly!" Tsunade readily admitted, indeed her hands were itching, saying, "Fighting you is too boring, it's like hide-and-seek, just swatting insects, it's no fun at all."
Tsunade craved a good, solid brawl.
But Miki did not.
"Orochimaru is much more hardworking than you," Miki had to say fairly. "As for Jiraiya, I haven't seen him peeping in the women's bathhouse recently, nor have I seen him leave the village, so he's probably returned to Mount Myōboku for training."
"Damn it, that Jiraiya."
He ran off to that kind of place again to secretly train in Sage Mode!
Tsunade said a little unhappily, "Sage Mode isn't all that great, anyway; I still beat him until he cried for his mommy and daddy."
Tsunade knew Jiraiya could use Sage Mode even when they were children.
After that reverse summoning incident where he disappeared for over a month, Jiraiya even showed off in front of everyone upon his return.
He lifted a huge rock, his legs trembling.
It was almost comparable to her Super Strength.
That had surprised her quite a bit at the time, and she secretly increased her training volume.
"Sage Mode, huh?" Miki mused.
It was about time this training was put on the agenda.
"What did Slug Sage tell you about why you couldn't learn Sage Mode?" Miki asked.
"Slug Sage said..." Tsunade recalled, then said, "My Chakra quantity wasn't enough, and also, being impetuous wasn't suitable for Sage Mode training."
"Well, now you can learn it," Miki said.
Whether it was the amount of Chakra or her willpower.
"Oh, right," Tsunade realized, she had never thought about such a problem; now she met the conditions for training.
However, Jiraiya's Chakra quantity was definitely not as much as Tsunade's, let alone little Jiraiya back then.
This meant that the Sage Mode training conditions of the Three Great Sage Regions were not the same.
"Miki, then I'm going to Shikkotsu Forest to train in Sage Mode!" Tsunade said directly, acting on her thought.
"Wait," Miki said, "Take me with you."
"Huh? How do I take you?" Tsunade was confused.
Miki clapped her hands, and with a puff of summoning smoke, a small Slug appeared on Miki's shoulder.
Tsunade looked at the familiar Slug, her eyes widening.
???
"Is there a problem?" Miki asked innocently.
"Miki!!!"
"What's going on!!!?"
"Why is my Slug with you!!!?"
"Don't think I won't recognize it just because you dyed it!!!"
"You're mistaken," Miki said seriously. "This isn't your Slug, it's my Slug."
"Liar!!!" Tsunade raged. "Do you think I'm an idiot!?"
Miki nodded.
"That's what I think. At this point, it's best to just play dumb. It's already a fact, so what else can you do to me?"
Hearing this, Tsunade's small chest heaved rapidly.
She was furious!
"Die!" Tsunade pounced!
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