Takara noticed his arm was bent in the wrong direction from his elbow and furrowed his brow as he used his other hand to put it back in place, barely feeling any discomfort.
After taking a boat from the Land of Water and disembarking in the Land of Hot Water, he took the northwest route to approach the Takigakure area.
During this journey, he focused all his efforts on getting familiar with Sage Mode, but it turned out to be more complicated than he expected, by far.
It wasn't difficult to enter, maintain, or exit Sage Mode; the part that was giving him trouble was the sudden power increase of that state he wasn't accustomed to.
The tattoos that emerged on his body, green lines like Katsuyu's with a slight inclination towards purple, were irrelevant, as the bandages prevented others from noticing whether he was in Sage Mode or not.
In fact, only another sage should be able to sense when he was using senjutsu chakra.
But his body movements needed to be adjusted. Too much force combined with the flexibility of his new body caused his limbs to get out of place due to the rebound even if he didn't receive any actual damage.
Probably that's why the toads developed their katas.
And until he gained control and familiarity with Sage Mode, he couldn't properly study the fragments of the natural energy gem to integrate them into his arsenal.
"The positive part is that the seal is working wonderfully, and I have a great amount of senjutsu chakra accumulated," he clenched his hands, feeling the strength.
Although it was a bit wasteful, Takara entered Sage Mode not only to practice his movements and control but also because he needed to check the consumption rate and estimate the approximate duration of his reserves.
It would be fatal if he were in the middle of a battle and lost Sage Mode just because he didn't bother to explore its limits.
It was a pity that due to his unique Sage Mode, he couldn't mimic Naruto's idea of creating shadow clones to recharge natural energy by dispersing them. But it was the price he had to pay in exchange for a more potent mode, and considering that he could accumulate in advance and in his spare time, it really wasn't an inconvenience.
But now he could carry out his experiment.
Due to his previous study of Utakata's body, he had an estimate of why a jinchuriki would die when their bijuu was extracted.
In simple terms, since the bijuu integrates with the chakra in the human body's coil system, extracting it is equivalent to destroying that system and subtly but fatally damaging the organs.
No wonder Kushina could still move for a while even after Kurama was extracted; the damage was there and just needed time to take effect.
So he wanted to see if he was able to extract a bijuu from its jinchuriki without killing them, to validate his theories.
What he didn't expect was that as he left the northern border of the Land of Hot Water, he would come across so many Konoha ninjas blocking the surroundings.
"What happened?" he wondered intrigued and annoyed by the blockade.
He needed to pass through this route if he didn't intend to go into the Land of Fire, but now he stumbled upon the Konoha ninjas he wanted to avoid.
Something big must have happened!
He hid and released some noxins to scout, hoping to eavesdrop on some conversations and gather information. And the results of the gathered pieces led to a scenario that was a bit beyond his estimations.
"Did Jiraiya lead several squads of Konoha ninjas to attack Otogakure?" Takara reviewed the information several times and came to a conclusion.
His "testimony" that Otogakure took the Nine-Tails jinchuriki was probably used by Sunagakure as "valuable key information," and Konoha, considering who caused the death of the Third Hokage, swallowed it whole.
It was also a valid "excuse" to retaliate against the new village established by a traitor and let out the resentment of those who lost someone during the Konoha coup.
They couldn't do more than claim compensation from Sunagakure, but hitting the nearby Otogakure, whose leader was "crippled" by Sarutobi and had more booty to compensate for losses, was fair game!
In passing, it would act as a deterrent show of force.
Takara was indifferent to this fact; he was sure that if Jiraiya were here, Orochimaru would never die. And that's if the snake hadn't already left this place and forgotten about him, focusing again on experiments within another distant base using his recovered arms.
Which seemed quite likely given how Otogakure was barely holding on.
The problem was that if someone from Konoha saw him right now, they would think that Sunagakure was double-dealing, and they were actually plotting something.
Perhaps a certain dim-witted brain would even think they had allied with Otogakure again, knowing it would be an unexpected move and selectively forgetting that Sunagakure harbored great resentment over what happened.
If they were to join anyone in this fight, it would be Konoha to be able to teach Otogakure a lesson and secretly collect some interests.
And he was quite far from the "territory" where Sunagakure ninjas usually carried out missions, so if they found out and he said he was just returning, they wouldn't believe him and let him go.
"It looks like I'll need to do the mission after all," Takara sighed.
Although he wanted to fail the mission on purpose and not worry about it, now he would need to secretly kill even a Konoha ninja, steal their identity, and try to use it to pass without being discovered.
What could go wrong?