Under Ninja - Chapter 125
Chapter 125: "They Shall Live"
This is a test post for the website, containing this week's Under Ninja chapter.
You can read the chapter on MangaDex using the link below.
https://mangadex.org/chapter/59b8dceb-17d8-49d4-be1a-40106f61192a
Check out below the credit page for group comments, which will contain spoilers for the chapter.
Hey there, thanks for reading this far. It makes me really happy that people enjoy any of these series me and my friends dedicate our spare time to. Thank you for the support.
It's great to see Kuro again, despite his condition. The spread on page 13 definitely made me sit in silence for a minute. We also get a nice, long monologue from Ranran that touches on a few very interesting things.
Ranran seems to be enjoying her time tormenting Jonin Shimada over audio call. The arrogant way she acts makes it seem like the Shinobi Research Center and NIN are way less attached at the hip than we'd be led to believe. I eagerly await to see how Shimada and Kotoge handle their situation.
We then get to our first big reveal. The thirteenth and fourteenth Kumogakure Siblings, Jusaburo and Jushiro according to the NIN NIN Manual, are revealed to be growing (incubating?) in a Shinobi Research Center-associated lab. We now have confirmation of sorts that the Kumogakure Siblings are literally designed to exist in groups of three, giving the way that Juro, Toichi, and Juniro appeared a little bit more context.
It's interesting that the latest set of three have a more apparent connection than Nijiro, Hachiro, and Kuro did. I guess it'd be sorta hard to connect them, with Hachiro being dead prior to the beginning of the series, but at least Kuro mentions him in previous chapters.
Our second big reveal is that Kuro's body is being kept at the lab in place of a fifteenth Kumogakure sibling! Albeit without his head, but I'd say that's nothing a little Nijiro-esque cybernetic enhancements can't fix.
That leads into our third, less apparent reveal. Ranran mentions a certain person throughout her monologue. In the raw she uses the term "あの方" (ano kata), which is a highly respectful, honorific way of referring to someone. I had originally translated this term as "He", but have since gone back and changed it to gender-neutral terminology, as "あの方" is not exclusively used for men. In my opinion the most likely figures are either Koji Kashin or an unknown Kumogakure Clan higher-up, but I don't want to rule out the possibility of it being someone like Sasama quite yet.
To end the chapter off we get a little bit of Alexei action. Not sure if he's intending on escaping/repositioning or still going for the kill on the Noh-masked Konin and Tazaki at this point, but he seems to have a plan in mind.
This was a slightly shorter chapter than usual along with the two spreads, but I still felt like it had a decent amount of content.
Words of Wisdom:
"for I am LeDeidara"
ー SPOEKLREIORK
Update:
The next chapter releases in Japan on Monday, September 2nd.
Our version should release on either the same day or the next day.