Each of the cultist had been pulled into a different room before I questioned them. Separating them was also a way to put them under more psychological pressure, to force them to doubt each other and compare each of their answers to get the full picture while filtering out the lies they might have slipped in. It was a simple yet effective way to make them talk faster.

In the end, it didn't matter how fanatical somebody was. They cracked. Everyone does after enough time. It didn't help that they met one of the worst persons to interrogate them. Kakuzu knew how to make people talk, and the threads made flexible a tool for inducing some horrible experiences to its victims. All of those memories and tools? They were now part of me. Wasting those talents would be... well, a waste.

Unfortunately, the cultists didn't give me what I really wanted – the cult leader's whereabouts. It didn't seem like they were trusted with that information. I did get the location of other branches, though, so that was something.

To get that information, however, I had to sit through the history lesson of the cult.

The name of the demon that they worshipped was Moryo, and the cult was led by someone called Yomi. Though there wasn't much I could do with just names. I would put Ginji on it, see if the names came up somewhere. Getting information on the cult was suspiciously hard. True, I wasn't putting my full capital into them for obvious reasons, but I couldn't help but suspect their deeper involvment in the country.

A decade ago, the cult had attacked the temple where the demon was sealed and tried to release the demon from its bindings. Their attempt was a failure. Their previous leader had died with the endeavor.

They hadn't given up, of course. Instead, they were preparing for another attack.

That's where those insectoid snakes came into the play. The cultist I found in the laboratory knew more about the topic. He was generous enough to inform me about those creatures.

The cult practiced a dark form of medical ninjutsu. What the branch leader had injected into himself was a type of parasitic creature developed by Yomi. The creation of those things required a life force and therefore – a sacrifice. Human one specifically, as there was a compatibility issue with the parasites created from a different species and the host. Fun stuff.

While the parasite provided a surge of power, it didn't last long. The branch leader fell to exhaustion within minutes and his transformation reverted. After that, the color had drained from his face, and he had trouble supporting himself. Upon closer look, he appeared to have aged for few years. If this state was permanent or if the lost life force could be recovered, I wasn't certain. I would place my bet on the former one, though.

I would look into it more. Perhaps later. But I had another objective to accomplish before that.

I grabbed the withered, half-dead body of the branch leader. The torture hadn't helped with his condition. Barely at the level of chunin, his heart wouldn't be something that I would normally consider transplanting. But the circumstances called for some disposable subjects.

I ripped the heart out of his body as my chakra flooded the organ. I began performing the jutsu again.

Small surge of additional chakra circled throughout my body as I bound the heart with the water elemental heart. The increase was nothing impressive, but I wanted to check out something.

I grabbed another body and repeated the process. Well, it shouldn't work, but neither should dimensional soul transfer. It was worth a try since I had nothing to lose, apart from a cheap heart.

I infused chakra into it and tried binding it to myself, but that was when a problem arose.

There was a resistance that was preventing the jutsu from completing. A sense of wrongness assaulted my psyche, like an alarm warning me of consequences. I pushed the jutsu forward anyway. The pain intensified, coming from deep within my being. And I felt something within me being twisted. It was taxing, but not a life-threatening. So I insisted on its completion.

Then the heart burst, not one I was holding with my palm but the one that had already been beating in my chest. I gasped from the sensation. The pain was intense and I had to force myself to not fall. I wasn't sure what possessed me to go through with the experiment, but I was glad it was over.

The mask attached to my back broke into pieces, and I threw out the nonfunctional heart. I looked at the one still in my palm, the one that replaced the ruined one. How the jutsu worked didn't change. No sixth heart for me. I would like to say that I wasn't disappointed, but then I would be lying. A cheap power up would be nice. This wasn't my lucky day, it seemed.

Bringing the threads connected to the new fifth heart towards my chest, I brought out a mask from the storage seal and bound it to the heart.

With that done, I grabbed another body, piercing through the ribcage and grasping the heart within with the threads. But I didn't rip it out. Instead, I let the chakra build up inside the body, then spreading it throughout the chakra system.

Slowly, the body I was holding began to change and morph. The skin began to wriggle, then darken, rip and twist. The transformation first began at the fingertips. The fingers twisting and morphing until turning into the organic tentacles similar to what most of my body consisted of.

The effect spread throughout the body until what I was holding was nothing else but a still-beating heart hidden inside numerous dark tentacle-threads. I brought out another mask and attached it to the mass of tendrils and bound it to the heart. The threads began to intervene with each other, shaping into a similar form as the water affinity thread puppet, albeit this one being a much weaker version.

There was no surge of chakra from the puppet, as it wasn't connected to me like the five inner hearts where. Those hearts were extension of my consciousness, increasing my chakra volume and empowering its potency, while being able to control them with a simple thought. No such thing was going on with the puppet in front of me.

There was no more room to integrate additional hearts into my system, as the Jiango was heavily connected to the concept of the five elemental affinities. The inner hearts corresponded to an affinity each.

The outer puppet I just created had no such connection with me. That said, I did create a self-sufficient puppet which would make any puppet master (with considerably flexible moral values) envious. Well, maybe not this puppet particularly as it wasn't that strong. But the concept had a potential. The hearts and the threads created a close system, with the heart continuously pumping the chakra throughout the puppet.

It would be like if a puppet master owned a puppet with its own, self-recharging chakra battery. Meaning I could do more interesting things with the thing.

I raised my hand and a chakra thread extended from my finger, connecting to the puppet. It moved, obeying the orders I inputted through the chakra thread. It was a simple application of the puppet technique, and I could replicate this much.

But I wasn't a puppet master.

I cut the connection and the the puppet turned immobile. There would be a need for a constant connection for me to control it. It wasn't my preferred way for fighting. I wasn't Sasori. I wouldn't be able to control hundred puppets simultaneously like he did. Nor was I skilled in the art. Those limitations made them ineffective to incorporate in my arsenal. Splitting attention to that extent was going to slow me down, and I'd rather incorporate the hearts of the powerful shinobi into my main ones.

Normally, I would consider the outer puppets inflexible and abandon the concept like the past Kakuzu did, but I had an idea of how to make use of them. It would require a certain technique, however.

One way to circumvent the need to constantly keep connection and attention on the outer puppets, could be the talismans that Orochimaru made to control the shinobi reanimated by Edo Tensei. Unlike with the puppet technique, the reanimations didn't need a constant attention to fight. If I could get my hands on that talisman and had someone reverse-engineer it, the puppets might just be able to display their true potential.

Well, technically there would be no reverse-engineering going on. I just had to wait a while longer until the fated battle, and should get a hold of Anko as well.

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

But before that...

I looked at the cultists' unconscious bodies scattered in the room. Yeah, I should take care of this before that.