《Naruto- Secret Sage》


 (AUXILARY CHAPTER)Chakra and beast knowledge

    (AUXILARY CHAPTER)Chakra and beast knowledge


    Chakra isprised of two primaryponents and five subsidiary ones. Yin and yang energy are the primaryponents. Yin energy is the power of the mind or soul and dictates the nature and purpose of chakra. Yang energy is the energy of the body as is the power and shape of chakra. From there chakra can be further split into a vast array of elements and powers however the very basics are the five subsidiary chakra natures. Fire, water, earth, wind and lightning are the basic natures that build each of the moreplex ones.


    An example is fire + water = steam chakra.


    For the vast majority of ninjas one or two of these basic natures are what they have dominantly in their chakras. While it remains true that a ninja is not limited to using only their dominant chakra natures few ever put in the considerable amount of work required to learn all of them beyond a small degree. Creating abined chakra element such as steam requires one of two things however. The first is a Kekkai Genkai or bloodline limit. These are an innate understanding of and ability to use abined chakra element due to ones ancestor having mastered the fusion of two basic elemental energies.-


    The second method is of course self creation of thebined elements through sheer mastery of the basic chakra natures and going even a step further to fuse them together. This is by far the highest form of mastery achievable with ones chakra elements and as a result very few ever seed. Finally there is thest type of energy that can be added to chakra , natural energy. Natural energy unlike chakra is ever present andes from outside of ones self with only a few exceptions. Natural energy is the energy of the world itself in many ways and takes the traits of those that live within and "taint" a certain area for a certain amount of time.-


    When natural energy is taken into a ninjas body and mixed with their chakra a new form of power is born, Sage chakra. It should be noted however that this process of taking in natural energy is dangerous for most as nature energy will seek to flood into the body and bring it in tune with nature. If not controlled correctly this will cause one to permanently take the features of whatever being has tainted the natural energy in that area at best or at worse turn one into a stone statue.-


    If one is sessful in creating Sage chakra however one will enter a heightened state known as "Sage mode" that grants a vast increase in physical strength , speed , reaction time , energy based attacks and the aptly named Senjutsu or Sage arts. These Sage arts add natural energy to a technique or use it as fuel for one which in turn massively and in most cases qualitatively transforms the attack into a powerful force of destruction or in extremely rare cases creation.-


    Ninjutsu and Senjutsu are created by ninjas who learned how to control their chakra and transform it into elemental or neutral energy based forms with a vast degree of versatility. They achieve this through two main methods. The first is handsigns that when used cause ones chakra to internally shift and mold into the shape and nature of the attack or technique being wanted. The moreplex the handsigns needed the more powerful orplex a technique is. The second method is internal molding in which the ninja is so familiar with the chakra transformation into the technique using handsigns that they no longer need hand signs to pull it off. -


    This is only ever seen at higher levels of shinobi however as it requires a vast amount of practice and muscle memory. Moving on we have a daily facet of ninja life that many take for granted or underestimate, Seals or fuinjutsu. Fuinjutsu is the use of written symbols to achieve an effect when chakra is added to them or a condition is fulfilled. The exact nature of fuinjutsu is static for the most part as seals will only ever do what the symbols allow them to in a manner very reminiscent ofputer coding.-


    The main differences however are that seals have very physical effects on reality and can be applied to more than just a single type of thing. For example a fire creation seal could be used by a cksmith just as well as in battle against an enemy ninja. In theory fuinjutsu''s limit is only the skill and knowledge of the one using it but few examples of this are known beyond the sealing of the ten tailed beast.-


    Next up is the tailed beasts, sage beasts and chakra beasts beneath them in the natural order. Tailed beast is a title granted to nine creatures quite literally made of chakra and natural energy originally but has since extended to any other creature that fulfills those conditions as well. The original tailed beasts however have long since been sealed within living hosts who are known as jinchuriki. These jinchuriki are considered secret weapons by the viges who possess them and few are aware that these same nine tailed beasts can be fused together again to recreate the ten tailed beast that had been sealed away long ago.-


    Chakra beasts on the other hand are far moremon and is a title held by any animal that gains the ability to use chakra in any regard. These same animals are typically much more powerful than their normal counterparts and tend to have special abilities as well. Ninjas are well known to sign summoning contracts with these beasts to have them aid them. Finally there are the sage beasts. They are much like chakra beasts in that they can use chakra but unlike the chakra beasts , Sage beasts have evolved to gain sapience and the ability to utilize natural energy as well.-


    Many think that there are only three kinds of sage beasts but that is incorrect as there are in fact only three who are known to take an active participation in the affairs of the world beyond their "sage region". These three are the "three unexplored mystic regions" Mount Myoboku home to the toad sage beasts, Ryuchi cave home to the snake sage beasts and Shikkotsu forest home to the slug sage beast Katsuyu who can divide herself into many smaller slugs to be used but is in fact only a single sage beast. The other sage beasts simply don''t bother themselves with the affairs of the world and are thus unknown for the most part.

 (AUXILLARY CHAPTER)Ninja knowledge

    (AUXILLARY CHAPTER)Ninja knowledge


    Within each vige there is a publicly recognized power scale that goes as follows.


    Genin: Just graduated from the academy/fresh meat.


    Chunin: Have been epted as reached the bare minimum level ofpetency to be considered a decent ninja/cannon fodder.


    Special Jonin: those whose full abilities don''t reach the Jonin level but have excellent skills in a certain subject that does reach that point.


    Jonin: The stronger members of the ninja vige with great skill and power at their disposal.


    S-rank: Ninjas who are considered above Jonin and possibly equal to a kage from one of the hidden vige, very rare.


    Kage: Considered the strongest ninja of a vige and the one who leads all the others.


    SS-rank: A ninja who alone can pose a serious threat to several Kage level ninjas at the same time. Best examples Hashirama Senju and Madara Uchiha.


    There are also some special roles within the viges that are outliers as they serve an abnormal role from normal ninjas.


    Anbu: the shadowy and secretive type ninjas in charge of assassinations and other sketchy jobs.


    Anbu captain: Leader of an anbu squad and typically more skilled and powerful than their subordinates.


    Anbumander: the ninja who is at the head of the entire anbu organization.


    n head: The person who represents a particr n within a vige council.


    Councilman: anyone who is a part of the viges counselling body.


    Root: Everyone working for Danzo Shimura.


    Kage: The one who leads the vige in it''s entirety and has the most authority.


    Next I will exin how techniques work in this story.


    Insert element here-> "___________ Release" : the type of attack that is being made. Also includes "Sage art(nk)"


    No release stated: Taijutsu(hand to hand), Kenjutsu(sword technique),Fuinjutsu(seals),Shurikenjutsu(throwing weapons), Tailed beast attack


    There is also medical jutsu as well but that is pure chakra and medical skills like surgery and poison curing.


    Finally there are Dojutsu which are unique features given to the eyes of certain bloodlines such as the uchiha and Hyuga. These will be exined as they be relevant.

 Rebirth and the following events

    Rebirth and the following events


    Being born is a very unpleasant process for everyone involved obviously but few can exin exactly how unpleasant it is to be born. For the mother and depending on the father the father as well it is an agonizing process filled with blood, sweat, tears and unfortunately involuntary excretory responses. It was quitemon for the mothers giving birth to piss and shit themselves in the process. For me though I had the distinctly unpleasant experience of the one being born after I entered this body. It would have been stillborn had I not chosen to inhabit it ording to whatever being it was that gave me the opportunity.-


    Regardless here I was feeling pain and pressure from all sides as I got rejected from my mothers body.


    "WAAAAAHHH!" I screamed at the pain and sudden chill of the hospital room which seemed to satisfy the doctors.


    One of them held me in a single palm and a green energy radiated from their palm and sank into my body from my back soothing my pain away and in turn sending me to sleep. A few days past after that and I eventually managed to put together that my new name was Kenzo since that was what everyone said to me when they came to disturb my sleep or clean up after my body made a mess of itself.-


    Being an infant, a newborn no less, was an exhausting matter let me tell you. Even with the constant flow of natural energy into my body slowly improving and perfecting it as I was in a constant state of sage mode I was still tired. Oh yes I nearly forgot about that little detail didn''t I? See in exchange for being a natural born sage I traded my memories of this world with the being who sent me here.-


    That meant I knew literally nothing about this world I was in but had an ability that I was certain was highly valuable. Without the memories of this world however I wasn''t entirely sure exactly what being a sage meant. Anyways as I stated previously I gained a permanent and unending version of sage mode as the energy I could sense around me flowed into my small body and mixed with the energy in my body. It was all very fascinating for someone from earth like me to feel and witness but I couldn''t use the stuff without drawing attention which was thest thing I wanted and so I simply didn''t.-


    There were signs however that I found out about and had to actively monitor. Case in point was how dreadfully little control over their bodies an infant has and with me in sage mode constantly my physical strength was far more than a normal baby would have. This resulted in a few incidents were I broke something. Thankfully nobody seemed to notice the strangeness of it and just tended to me as per normal infant care. I never really got to get to know my parents after I was born however as eight days after I was born there was a great disturbance.-


    For the normal infants of which there was four others it merely disturbed them and caused them to cry but for me it was far different. Apparently as a sage I had extremely sharp senses and as a result could FEEL the wrathful and seemingly all powerful presence that had appeared all of a sudden. It felt like all the hatred in the world concentrated in one ce given murderous form. Even worse I am willing to swear on my life that whatever the thing was sensed me as well as for the briefest moment I felt like I was being stared at.-


    Oddly however the gaze didn''t seem harmful at all despite all the rage I felt the creature had. In fact the gaze almost seemed perplexed like it couldn''tprehend me of all things. The creature didn''t stopped rampaging outside for a while but the sounds it made did get further away by a lot until it eventually just vanished somehow. That part in particr confused the hell out of me because I couldn''t even begin to imagine something capable of defeating the creature I felt.-


    As I quickly realized however that creature had in fact killed my parents since they never came to visit me after that day. I was a little sad about it since they seemed like nice people but I hadn''t had enough time with them to really get attached and thus quickly got over it. I know that I should be more upset about it but as I said I simply hadn''t known them very well when they died. It was a bit like going to a party and hitting it off with someone only for you to never see them again, sad yes but hardly something that will upy much of your thoughts.-


    I wasn''t the only one orphaned that day though as nearly seven other infants were added to the care center much to my annoyance. In case it wasn''t obvious babies cry, a lot, as a result the eleven wails I was regrly subjected to left me more than a little grated. Sadly I was an infant and thus unable to simply extricate myself from the situation. I only needed to deal with it for a couple more weeks after that thankfully before I got taken home by an older woman obviously still in grief, my grandmother on my fathers side.-


    The woman was a strongdy and tried her best to let me grow up normally to the point she didn''t even seem to care that I learned much faster than any normal child and could speak coherently at the age of two. I was regrly taken for checkups due to a rather unfortunate attraction I had for the local wildlife. By that I don''t mean that I sought them out but rather the other way around as my house became a spot all sorts of animals congregated and not just the good sort either. Spiders, snakes, poisonous moths, cats, dogs, rabbits you name it and my home saw a visit at least once from them.-


    The funny part was that nobody could ever seem to figure out why they kepting to us as I made sure to stop any inflow of natural energy whenever someone came looking. Thanks to this I was able to figure out that nobody else seemed to be able to sense the stuff for some reason. There was one animal that came to visit that I refused to part with however much to my grandmothers absolute horror, Ren the scorpion.-


    I knew the moment Ren showed up that it was special as in my senses I felt the same chakra I myself had within it. It was weak, nearly nonexistent even but I felt it all the same and thus refused to allowed the ninjas who came from taking it. From an outside perspective it was probably quiteical to see a toddler protecting a highly dangerous scorpion from a group of ninjas who came to get rid of it.-


    The concerning part however was that the bright green scorpion was a docile as a ap dog around me. That seemed to get the viges attention as shortly after that I was visited by a ninja crawling with insects as well as by a woman with red fang like facial tattoos with arge white dog. Members of the Aburame and Inuzuka ns they introduced themselves as to my grandmother. By that time however Ren had nearly tripled in size as I let my curiosity get the best of me and sent a tiny amount of sage chakra into it.


    AUTHOR NOTE: I wrote this story as the choice made by my patrons and have a little over twenty chapters of it already on my P atreon.


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    Just remove the spaces

 Adoption and new friend

    Adoption and new friend


    The tiny amount of sage chakra had caused whatever was special about Ren to qualitatively shift forward as the amount of chakra I sensed in it grew by arge amount as the sage chakra dissolved into Ren. Alongside this increase in chakra Ren itself grew which was a bit of an issue as now my scorpion was the size of a medium sized dog on earth. It was only at that point that I learned that it was a chakra beast or even what a chakra beast was for that matter.-


    I knew what chakra was since I had asked my grandmother about the weird people you asionally saw running across the rooftops in the vige. She had exined to me about ninja or shinobi depending on what you wanted to call them. How they used a type of special energy called chakra to perform amazing feats beyond what us normal folk could even begin toprehend. My parents had been ninjas apparently and died because of the nine tails attack on the vige. I had pestered my grandmother about ninjas after that as I could tell it would be VERY important informationter.-


    Anyways jump forward to today when these two people from ninja ns came to see me and I was ying with Ren as they talked with my Grandmother.


    "Do you know if he has shown any signs of his chakra being active?" The Inuzuka woman asked seriously.


    "Not that I can tell but i was never a ninja so i wouldn''t know the first thing about such things. Perhaps his parents had something to do with it?" My grandmother suggested.


    "Hmm , I suppose it''s possible if the mother used chakra while pregnant on a regr basis." The calm voice of the Aburame ninja said seriously.


    "We have some ways to test it but we would need to separate him from the emeraldscorpion first." The Inuzuka woman said calmly.


    My grandmother sighed "I wish I could help since that thing makes me nervous but they are practically inseparable. Be warned though Kenzo is fiercely protective of the thing and it is of him as well so if you upset him it may attack." she warned worriedly.


    "We read the report and will be careful." the Aburame said with a nod.


    The pair walked over to where I was and I looked at them warily while moving in front of Ren. The woman smirked at that but held up her hands to show that she meant no harm. I didn''t rx though as I could sense arge amount of chakra in both her and the man next to her.


    "Hello Kenzo. My name is Mitami Inuzuka and this is Aoi Aburame. We came after we heard about the unusual friend you have here." Mitami said introducing herself.


    "I heard what you told gram gram , you can''t have Ren!" I said trying to be fierce but probably looked adorable instead. Stupid child body.


    Mitami chuckled at my words "Ren the scorpion huh? Not a bad name at all. You can keep Ren I promise but you need to leave it here for a little while okay?" she asked with a smile.


    I looked for any signs of treachery before looking at my grandmother who nodded encouragingly at me.


    "Okay , Ren stay!" I told the scorpion and under the astonished gaze of all the adults Ren settled in ce on the tatami floor with a few clicks of it''s mouth parts.


    Mitami and Aoi exchanged excited looks before leading me outside with my grandmother following behind. The small grass coveredwn was nice and sunny and felt nice on my feet as i walked(wobbled really) across it. Mitami pulled out a green scroll that when she unrolled had a bunch of strange squiggly lines on it. To my surprise I felt her chakra move into the lines and in a puff of smoke a few items appeared out of nowhere holding my full attention.-


    "Now then Kenzo could you hold this for me?" Mitami asked holding out a small ss bead that had swirling blue stuff in it.


    I cautiously took the thing from the woman and immediately dropped it in surprise when i felt my chakra get pulled into it. Both of the ninjas looked excited when I did this though which made me give them a weird look.


    *cough* "Don''t worry about it Kenzo how about you pick it up again but hold onto it tight this time okay?" Aoi said after coughing awkwardly and fixing his expression.


    I picked up the ss bead again and flinched a little when the thing started drawing in my chakra but didn''t drop it again. The blue in the marble started to swirl faster and faster before the ss cracked under the surprised expressions of the two ninjas when a tiny amount of sage chakra touched it.


    "It broke." I said confused as I looked at it.


    Mitami took the bead back and stared at it in confusion with Aoi doing the same before they both looked at me oddly.


    "Can I go y with Ren now?" I asked bored already and they nodded so I left.


    After that they spoke with my grandmother again before leaving and they didn''te back again until nearly a weekter with another ninja and a bunch of animals for some reason. I got introduced to all of the animals one at a time and was surprised to see that they were all chakra beasts like Ren and might have gotten a bit greedy. I wanted all of them and like any kid threw a temper tantrum when I was told no.-


    It was a small problem I had after getting reborn as I was being effected by my body in a mental capacity and couldn''t think the way I used to before i died on earth. If I did I probably would have noticed that I had drawn the sort of attention I wanted to avoid on ident. You can color me surprised then to find out that I had been adopted with my grandmothers permission by Mitami and Aoi who were apparently a married couple. ording to them they used to be on a squad together and ended up in a rtionship at some point.-


    The new house was nice though and there was even a sandy area in the yard that Ren seemed to enjoy burying itself. I found outter that Mitami had a ninken or ninja dog that was called Yokubo and was a person sized hound with soft cream colored fur and brown ears. Ren and Yokubo were not friends at all. The hound was great with me but almost downright hostile to Ren and so they never really interacted very much.-


    It probably didn''t help that Ren was still growing if much slower than before and had even gotten nearly as big as Yokubo by the time I was five. I ended up in trouble with my new parents a few times when I rode Ren to school since I didn''t feel like walking. The teachers and other kids parents freaked out for some reason every time I did which confused me because Ren was a good scorpion, never hurt a fly. Oh right I made a new friend too, a kid with yellow hair that kept getting bullied for some reason but was actually really nice. His name was Naruto and my new parents had funny looks when I told them about him.

 Growing up is boring

    Growing up is boring


    Obviously I hadn''t only just met Naruto when I was five but until that point in time I was homeschooled and as a result never had the opportunity to really interact with him. The vige was not some small ce where you ran into the same person on the regr even if you lived totally different lives after all. Sure I had seen him about when my new parents brought me with them to run errands sometimes but it was fleeting moments. ording to my new parents I was both a troublesome and easy to deal with child from the three years they had me before I really got to know Naruto.-


    I couldn''t be med though as besides learning how to read, write and talk normally everything else was dreadfully boring if it didn''t have something to do with beasts or ninjas. Basic math, aced. History, easy reading, ying with other kids, pointless and stupid. I was was a full out introvert and it apparently gave my new parents a headache and a half. For most kids you needed to worry about when they got quiet but for me it was the exact opposite as when I got loud there was a serious problem.-


    The main reasons I tended to get loud was out of surprise or joy at finding a new chakra beast. Oh yes by the time I finally went to public school at the age of five I had a small collection of chakra beasts numbering seven including Ren who was my first. I had a cat, a lizard, a hawk, a snake, a turtle and a wolf-dog that my new mom managed to get from her ns kennel as it was a mutt from a wolf chakra beast that bred with one of their normal ninken.-


    Thest one was something that her n really wanted to keep for themselves but was practically feral as it refuse to be tamed. My mom only got it because of this and brought the pup home where it promptly fell to the fate of being my new animal friend. I named him Kiba because of his big teeth. The rest of my small army of beast didn''t have names though as they didn''t want any when I asked. One of the benefits of being a sage all the time was that I sorta just could understand and be understood by animals.-


    Anyway back to my new friend Naruto. See my parents just didn''t want to bother with trying to teach me any of this basic stuff anymore and chose to send me to Konoha public school when I turned five. I can tell you for certain that it definitely wasn''t a pleasant experience for me at all as children were disgusting at my age. The teacher Mrs. Akeno tried to get me to y with the other kids but I refused and she wasn''t able to refuse my refusal on ount of whichever beast it was I snuck to school with me on any given day.-


    Oh my parents certainly tried to stop that as best they could but if I don''t want you to notice something I can make sure you won''t by covering it in natural energy. A wonderful application of my sage power in my opinion as due to natural energy being impossible to sense apparently for normal ninjas like my parents their senses slip right over me or my beastpanion for the day after I cover us. Oh I was stealthy as all jazz if i wanted to be which both pleased and irritated my parents as they couldn''t figure out how I did it.-


    My dad tried to cheat and use his many bugs to spy on me but I just told the bugs to ignore me and they did. You should have seen his face as he was all "He overwrote my control!" and stuff , it was great. The only kid in my ss I didn''t mind getting near though was Naruto since he usually just sat in the corner all sad and stuff as everyone avoided him. The teacher and all the other kids told me i should stay away from him but I am kinda rebellious and chose to do the opposite.-


    He was an orphan much like myself but hadn''t been adopted like me which he seemed envious about. His favorite of all my beasts was my cat since it was popr with everyone and he said he wanted that too, sad as hell right? He was not a big fan of my snake though which I could at least understand as back on earth I also wasn''t a huge fan of the slithery type critters either.-


    Not sure why but for some reason there was always somebody spying on Naruto which meant they were also spying on me a lot. I loved to y pranks on the person using ants, wasps and any other hard to notice insect by having them attack the person. Oddly whenever I did my parents would ask me if I made anything attack someone. I denied any involvement but my parents didn''t seem convinced. Still at least whoever it was spying on us learned to do it from further away and wasn''t staring holes in the back of our heads anymore.-


    Naruto was nice and all that but I REALLY hated how dumb he was for some reason like nobody had ever taught him more than the bare basics he needed to know like how to speak, read and write. His handwriting was horrible and something I forced him to work on all the time even though heined about it. I didn''t even realize it but I ended up taking the role of the teacher with him since the teacher had stopped paying attention to me after I became friends with him. Not that it mattered since I was already way ahead of the ss since we were only learning basic math and history and I had all the math knowledge from my college days on Earth.


    Outside of ss though Naruto was boisterous and cheerful with this odd verbal tick were he ended nearly every statement with the words "believe it!" , his dream of being the hokage was interesting though. Not because it was the position of the leader of the vige but because i asked my parents what it took to get there and what a hokage was supposed to do and it sounded like a job ill suited to Naruto.-


    The words "calm and decisions" didn''t go together as far as Naruto was concerned as the guy was pretty spontaneous. Since Naruto was going to be a ninja I chose to follow along since it sounded like it might be interesting and a good way to collect more chakra beast as well. Naruto had asked me what my dream was and frankly speaking the only thing I could think of was to have the biggest collection of chakra beasts ever. We butted heads over that though as he thought it was dumb and I took offense to that and insulted his dream as well , it was all in good fun though as neither of us was actually trying to anger the other.

 Academy

    Academy


    Both Naruto and I entered the Konoha ninja academy when we were six but by no means were we at the bottom of the ss. All of my tutoring had done wonders for my yellow haired friend as he was much to the confusion of our teacher Iruka for some reason actually ahead of the rest of the ss slightly. I got in trouble a lot for the first couple years since I waszy and only did the bare minimum to pass. We had a total of thirty four ssmates but I only ever bothered to remember the names of twelve of them.-


    Naruto, Ino, Sakura, Sasuke, Tenten, Rock Lee, Hinata, Neji, Shikamaru, Kiba, Shino and Choji. The rest of our ssmates were boring and in so I forgot about them as soon as they introduced themselves. Even amongst the twelve I did remember the names of the only ones I really didn''t have trouble ignoring the existence of was Naruto, Sasuke, Kiba and Shino. Naruto for obvious reasons , Sasuke because he was a pain in my backside after Teacher Iruka pointed out I wasn''t taking him seriously in our spars. Kiba and Shino because they were "family" ording to my parents and regrly came over after their own parents learned we were in the same ss.-


    Kiba got really mad when he found out my wolf-dog beast was also named Kiba and we had a whole argument about it, I won. Shino was rather introverted and quiet with very little presence in any given scenario and tended to get ignored as a result. He was a big fan of Ren though so we got along just fine. This wasn''t to say I didn''t get along with the others only that I didn''t go out of my way to interact with them.-


    There was two people however that I tried my absolute best to avoid talking to in the form of Ino and Sakura who were both fangirls of Sasuke and as a result not fans of mine at all. Sasuke was from the Uchiha n, the patriarchs son no less, and was a female favorite amongst the girls of our year and then some. The problem however was that the boy had thisplex about living up to his families expectations and saw me as an obstacle to ovee. Some nonsense about not being the best in our ss if he couldn''t make me fight him seriously.-


    What only I knew however was that much less him I was pretty sure in terms of sheer strength I had even our teacher beat by a wide margin. I''m not talking skill because I will be the first to admit I was a novice in that regard no better than any of my other ssmates. No I am talking about my body that had been in sage mode since I was born and as a result had been growing with that as my base.-


    In terms of chakra volume I was just under Naruto who had freakishly massive reserves and physically speaking I could uproot a tree with nothing but my bare hands and some exertion. I know this because I had actually tried it at one point in secret. Compared to Sasuke who paled at a hundred or so pounds of purely physical lifting without using chakra to enhance his strength I was far beyond him. The funny part was that everyone seemed to think I was secretly training all the time or something like that but I barely had the drive to move much less do something as monotonous as train.-


    I didn''t really need to train either as since my body was perfectly bnced and my mind was clear and quick I rapidly improved in all the basic ninja techniques and information with just the minimum effort I needed to show to get Iruka and my parents off my back. Basic sses, easy. Handsigns and their meanings, piece of cake. Taijutsu, not worth mentioning. Shuriken and ninja tool use, top tier. It had been widely epted by my second year in the academy that the only reason I wasn''t at the top of my ss or skipping grades was because I was toozy to give that amount of effort.-


    As it turned out that drew the attention of someone I really didn''t want the attention of, the Hokage. We got a two week break between each year and one afternoon while I was hanging out with Naruto he just randomly showed up.


    "Hey Kenzo you think Iruka sensei will try and make you skip a grade again?" Naruto asked between mouthfuls of ramen from Ichiraku.


    *Slurp* "Nah, I''m sure he gave up on convincing me to do that by now. It would be weird if he didn''t, I can only tell him no so many times before it starts to make him look dumb." I said as I finished my third bowl of spicy seafood ramen.


    "Oh ho? So you must be Kenzo-kun then, Iruka has beenining about you to me for a while now." A older voice spoke as the long curtains of the ramen shop rustled from being moved.


    Naruto and I looked over at the source of the voice and there stood an old man with a spike of hair on his wrinkled chin and the wide red hat with white sun shade curtains on the side and a white area with the word "HOKAGE" written in bold red against the white.


    "Gramps what are you doing here?" Naruto asked confused and my jaw dropped.


    "Your grandpa is the third Hokage!?" I eximed since my friend had left out that little detail.


    "Ho Ho! Naruto''s parents left him in my care before they passed away please just treat me like anyone else." the old Hokage said with a chuckle.


    I frowned however "Then you are the one responsible for his current conditions then?" I asked with a not so friendly tone.


    Naruto lived in a low ie apartment and barely got enough money a month to survive on cheap food and junk. Not to mention that people still red at him and treated him poorly even after i started hanging around and "kindly" convincing them of his good nature. Needless to say learning that someone, Hokage especially, was supposed to be taking care of him yet he lived in that condition left me less than happy, No I was VERY unhappy. My anger must have caused my power to slip out a little as the wood counter creaked and began to crack under my grip as I stared the old man down.-


    He smiled though and sat down next to us "Narutos lucky to have you as a friend. I admit that I regret much of what Naruto has had to deal with but much of it was also out of my hands as well. He was orphaned when the nine tails attacked all those years ago much like yourself. But you need to understand that with the fourth Hokage lost I had to pick up the pieces and simply didn''t have the time to spend ensuring Naruto got a proper upbringing while restoring the vige as well and I cannot apologize enough for it." he said with honest remorse.

 Danzo Shimura

    Danzo Shimura


    I was still frowning at the old man but I could at least ept his answer as it made sense. "What about now? I doubt you couldn''t do something to make his life better like increase his allowance or something like that so why don''t you?" I asked seriously before ordering another bowl of ramen.


    Naruto remained silent through this entire conversation as he more or less had his own questions on the matter but respected the third Hokage too much to confront him. He was also perhaps just a little afraid of the answers he may receive.


    The Hokage sighed tiredly "I want to, truly I do. But the council would never agree to it. Even almost seven yearster we have only just recovered from the nine tails attack and if I tried to redirect even slightly more funds to Naruto the council would veto that decision immediately." he said honestly.


    My frown deepened "And this is despite who his father is?" I asked.


    Both Naruto and the Hokage eximed "You know who my/his father is!?" at the same time.


    I scoffed at this though "You both act like it was hard to figure out with hisst name being Uzumaki of all things. There have only ever lived four Uzumaki n members in the vige ording to the public library and only two of those were married. Unless Naruto is a direct descendant of the first Hokage his dad is pretty obvious. One Minato Namikaze or as he was more widely known, the fourth Hokage." I said exined easily.


    The Hokage sighed "I suppose I shouldn''t be surprised that you learned this despite trying to keep it quiet but you shouldn''t tell anyone else this information or Minato''s enemies maye after Naruto." he said firmly.


    "So it''s true but why didn''t you tell me all this time?" Naruto asked with a hurt look that made the old man have a pained expression.


    "I had nned to tell you when you matured but Kenzo here has ruined that n , not that I can me him. After all your father did for the vige you still ended up being treated as you are. It''s a shame I will never be able to wash clean." the old man said while bowing his head apologetically.


    "Speaking of the way the vige treats him whats that even about anyways? Far as I can tell he''s just a normal guy but everyone acts like he was some huge criminal , what gives?" I asked and the Hokage looked really ufortable with the topic.


    "Let me give you a warning young man, leave that subject alone. Both of you will learn about it when you are ready but not now. And don''t go poking around either, you won''t find anything. I made sure of it." another old voice spoke as another elderly man walked into shop.


    This one though was covered in bandages from the right side of his head all the way to the right arm that was also bound tightly and held in a sling to his chest. On his chin he had an X shaped scar and his left eye looked at me and Naruto in a predatory cold manner I REALLY didn''t like.


    "Danzo, what are you doing here?" the hokage demanded sternly after clearly recognizing the man.


    I can tell you I didn''t like Danzo at all the moment I focused on him with my senses. It wasn''t just the unnaturally careful way he carried himself either as be it his scent or chakra I was getting strangely mixed and unnatural signals from him. Even more my instincts were telling me to get far away from him like he was moments away from killing me at any given instant. I am not sure why but I subconsciously positioned myself between the man and Naruto. A thing he seemed to notice as well and nod at.


    "Sharp instincts, I expect nothing less given the information about you I have. My name is Danzo Shimura and I have had my eye on you for quite some time now Kenzo Mizuyama." Danzo introduced himself and his voice made my skin crawl.


    It was cold, detached would perhaps be a better word and it had this sort of undertone to it that spoke of death. Yeah I really didn''t like Danzo Shimura one bit. That said I wasn''t alone at the moment and an oppressive presence came from the old man next to me as he red his chakra at Danzo aggressively.


    "Tch, I remember what we discussed regarding the boy Hiruzen. There is no need to bare your teeth at me, I was merely introducing myself." Danzo said backing off as the Hokage red at him in warning.


    "you never answered me Danzo." Hiruzen said forcefully.


    "You know why I am here and from the sounds of it I arrived just in time as well." Danzo said coldly.


    I looked at the ramen shop owner at this point who was frowning at the two old men disturbing his business. "Pack it up to go will you , my appetite has been ruined." I said calmly breaking up the hidden or open i don''t know which conflict between the old men.


    "Aye , give me a minute or two." the shop owner Teuchi said with a grateful look.


    Reaching into the pouch my parents gave me for my allowance I pulled out three bills and a few silver coins to put on the counter, the cost of our food. I still had a few more coins in the bag but I had spent most of my allowance on the meal not that it bothered me since both Naruto and I were heavy eaters. One of the few downsides to having suchrge chakra reserves unfortunately was that you needed a lot more calories to sustain yourself. I tended to spend my allowance rather quickly on treating Naruto to meals as a result but it didn''t bother me as I didn''t really need money for anything else.


    "Now then I believe it''s time for me and Naruto to leave, please do have a good day." I said calmly as I collected my takeout and dragged Naruto out of the shop. The blonde didn''t even struggle as he was far too caught in the revtions he had gotten to even notice.


    On the way back to my house I may or may not have told every animal I came across to attack Danzo if they saw him. And I may or may not have ordered the birds in the vige to crap on his head as well. Naruto ended up stay the night after that which was nice though my blonde friend was a chatter box talking about his parents when it was just us. He even made this whole joke about how his dad being hokage meant he was destined to do so as well but I still thought Naruto had a snowballs chance in an active volcano to pull it off.

 Wasted potential and mimicry

    Wasted potential and mimicry


    After that it was life as usual for me though there was a new development that I had been working on after getting a firm handle on the academy taught taijutsu style. See the style was perfectly fine if you didn''t rely on your physical body for fighting like I did. Not to say I couldn''t use ninjutsu as that wasn''t the case but no one in my ss had been able to force me to use more than my overwhelming physical advantage during our spars. Even Neji and Hinata whose n was taijutsu focused were sluggishly slow in my eyes and thus nevernded any hits.-


    Speaking of their n it frankly boggled my mind how stupid they were in using their innate dojutsu, the Byakugan. The strange pupiless eyes had the unique ability to see the chakra in someone''s body and even the air itself. The eyes also granted near three sixty vision and long range reconnaissance abilities. Despite this massive advantage the n chose one of the worst ways I could think of to utilize their gifts by focusing on paralyzing their opponents chakra flow via a specialized taijutsu style called {gentle fist}. -


    How the n hadn''t realized or if they had taken advantage of the uniquely gifted start in the medical ninjutsu field they had from birth was beyond me. They could literally see inside the bodies of the people they would be healing without using a single invasive method like drawing blood or cutting them open. Don''t even get me started on how powerful they would be if they used genjutsu as well. Genjutsu was the art of crafting illusions using chakra to affect your opponents senses. From my understand the way it works was that you injected you chakra into your target and as it circtes through them use it to mess with what they sense.-


    There were also two ways I knew of to get free of a genjutsu which is where their byakugan came in. the first was to disrupt your chakra flow somehow and the second was to inflict very real pain on your body as the pain signal rebooted your senses for ack of a better term. With a byakugan that literally lets you see someone''s chakra flow you can imagine how skilled at the art the n could be but no if anything it was apparently frowned upon in the n to use genjutsu.-


    Anyways after seeing the Hyuga ns taijutsu in action I couldn''t help but admit thatpared to the style the academy taught it was practically godlike. The two couldn''t even be mentioned together unless you were trying to show how good the gentle fist style was. The Uchiha style taijutsu was also pretty damn good but was specialized towards using ones full body unlike the Hyuga ns taijutsu that was all about the hands. The Inuzuka n also had a type of taijutsu unique to them called {man beast} that involved imitating the ninken that they employed.-


    This sparked inspiration in me, Why couldn''t I do something simr? I was a sage whose body was perfectly in tune with nature itself so there was no reason why I shouldn''t be able to mimic my own beasts to create my own taijutsu style. If I went a step further I could probably imitate the unique abilities of my beasts as well. Ren for example could convert the chakra in it''s body into poison that was so highly toxic that point my parents collect it once a month to sell to other ninjas, it has had a one hundred percent fatality rate so far.-


    The rest of my chakra beast had their own unique chakra based abilities as well that I could copy. My cat could blend into shadows, my hawk could whip up attacks made out of pure wind. My turtle could use it''s chakra to breath under water. My lizard could turn invisible , my snake could create physical clones of itself and Kiba my wolf ninken could coat himself in lightning that made him hard to hit as his speed shot up drastically. With this knowledge I had been spending a bunch of my time training to mimic my beasts since we started sses again.-


    It was slow going though since while my body was certainly capable of it like any form of fighting it took a stupid amount of practice and attention to detail. Right now I was still on my first beast, Ren. As a human I only had four limbs unlike Ren who had nine if you include the tail so I had to break down the mimicry to certain parts of Ren that I could mimic. At this exact moment I was focused on getting the attacks of Rens pincers down with my hands.-


    A scorpions pincers served three purposes in battle, first they were powerful grabbers to hold things in ce. Second they could be used as shields, finally they could tear things apart. The first and final parts I grasped easily enough as that was all muscle control but the second was proving tricky. I knew I needed to create a thin but sharp sort of chakra covering on my hands but I wasn''t sure how to aplish it and had to resort to trial and error. My parents were quite upset with the consistent injuries to my hands I had from my chakra exploding or cutting everything including myself.-


    I only ever used a tiny amount of chakra though so the damage was nothing my strong body couldn''t handle but damn if it didn''t hurt.


    "What are you even doing to get injuries like this anyways?" my mom asked as she cleaned the many small cuts on my palm with an alcohol soaked cotton swab.


    "I''m trying to imitate Rens pincers but I can''t figure out how to turn the chakra into a cutting force without this happening." Iined in frustrating since this was fifth time in as many days I had to suffer the alcohol cleanings.


    "Do you mean chakra flow?" she asked with a surprised look.


    "Is that what that is called? Is it somethingmon or have I been doing something stupid this whole time?" I asked curiously.


    "Well it is primarily used by the samurai of thend of iron but the idea was that you create a thin but fast moving edge of chakra along a de of some sort to create a sort of extreme sharpness. In my opinion a wind release jutsu would just be simpler to learn." She exined and even added her own opinion on the matter.


    "I see and would it be possible to create five such edges on ones palm at once like I have been attempting?" I asked hopefully.


    "You are getting a bit ahead of yourself mister. Rather than trying to get five edges at once you should start with trying to master one before moving on to add more. You have more talent than I have ever seen but even geniuses like you need to learn step by step. I can''t help you learn chakra flow though since I don''t know how to do it myself but I can see about getting you a tutor to help you grasp it." she said with a warm smile.

 Mito Tokugama

    Mito Tokugama


    She did too as not more than a dayter I met this tutor aftering home from the academy for the day.


    "I''m home!" I called as i walked into the house and took my shoes off to not track dirt in.


    "We are in the dining room!" My mom called back and I set off down the hallway towards the dining room.


    Our house wasn''t very big in truth as we only had about two thousand square feet of space split between six rooms of medium to small size. Most of our property was actually emptynd or beast residence where we kept my chakra beasts since they can''t all fit in my room(believe me I tried). They didn''t mind though since most of them were used to it by now and the only ones in the house were the smaller sort like my cat and snake.-


    I wasn''t surprised when I walked around the corner and saw that there was someone new sitting at the table drinking from a jug of sake. It was a woman in a loose set of standard issue ninja garb with short ck hair and a long de sheathed at her waist. Just as I was observing her she was also observing me.


    "Ho! Looks like this gig might not be boring after all." she said with an amused smirk breaking the silence.


    "Kenzo Mizuyama." I introduced myself but didn''t take my eyes off the woman as I sat down at the table.


    "Mito Tokugama, your mom here asked me to teach you chakra flow but you don''t seem the sort to use a de. Care to exin?" Mito asked after introducing herself and exining why she was here.


    "Have you met Ren yet?" I asked not answering her directly.


    "I can''t say as I have, why?" she asked curiously.


    I pointed to the sandy yard outside the open door next to the dining room. "Rene!" Imanded and the ground began to ripple as Ren unburied itself and marched over to the door.


    Mito had her right hand gripped around the handle of her de with a serious look when Ren appeared. I ignored that and rubbed ren up on his hard green carapace just behind his eyes where he liked it. It was a spot his feet couldn''t reach so he often got sand stuck there that irritated him a bit.


    "Awfully dangerous pet you got there kid but considering what n your dads from can''t say as it''s all that strange. Whats it got to do with you learning chakra flow though?" Mito asked while rxing once she was sure that Ren wasn''t a threat. That didn''t mean she didn''t keep a close eye on it though in case it suddenly turned hostile.


    "I am trying to copy these with my hands but obviously my hands aren''t designed to tear through things the same way which was why I was using chakra to fill the gap. My mom told me that the actual technique I was trying to create already existed in the form of chakra flow which leads us to this point." I exined calmly while holding up Rens pincers that were the size of a dinner tter and razor edged with curved dagger like tips.


    "So let me get this straight, you are trying to learn how to use chakra flow to copy your scorpions ws?" Mito asked with an odd expression.


    I nodded seriously "I can make my chakra flow along my fingers but I can''t figure out how to stop it from cutting me as well as whatever I grab. It''s quite frustrating." I said like that whole statement wasn''t the most insane thing ever.


    "Is he serious right now?" Mito asked my mom who nodded helplessly.


    "If your mom is half aspetent as she seems she has likely told you that chakra flow is designed for des. What she hasn''t told you is probably WHY that is. By it''s nature the technique is entirely geared towards destruction and as a result causes damage to whatever it is applied to hence the need for a hard durable material like a metal de. What you sound like you are attempting to aplish is instead pointing that destructive force in only a single direction and thus allowing you to safely use it with your bare hands." Mito said seriously.


    I nodded "That makes sense, so how do I do that then?" I asked curiously.


    "Before that though can you show me how far you have gotten on using chakra flow so I have an idea where to start. Use a kunai." She said not answering my question but since her request made sense I pulled out a kunai and channeled my chakra along it''s edge as tightly and sharply as I could.


    There was a nearly audible humming sound as I did so and Mito''s eyes widened in astonishment before she pulled out one of her hairs and tossed it at the kunai where it was split apart on contact.


    "Where on earth did you find this little monster Mitami? His chakra flow is even better than mine!" she said in shock.


    I frowned "Really? I thought it was supposed to be brighter and louder?" I said confused since that was how my mom described the technique.


    "Quite the opposite in truth. When the technique is first learnt it is highly visible and loud because the level of chakra and chakra control needed to use it well is extremely high and most learning the technique only have the chakra but not the control to minimize the edge created. At it''s highest level the amount of chakra needed is miniscule but the control needed to hold the edge at that small a size is monstrous. This is why true masters of the technique are nearly impossible to notice when they are using it as the edge is nearly microscopic and thus invisible." she exined seriously.


    "So I haven''t mastered it then? Disappointing." I said unhappily.


    "Oi Oi! Don''t act like mastering this is supposed to be easy you little brat! It usually takes decades to get where you are for a normal talented samurai. Freakish talent aside you clearly have extremely tight control over your chakra for whatever reason so you should be able to learn the technique that would allow you to create an edge without cutting yourself, chakrayering." she said more than a little irritated.


    "Chakrayering? I am not familiar with this term, exin." I said curious.


    "It''s not surprising you haven''t heard of it. Chakrayering is an advanced form of chakra maniption that involves separating the chakra used in a technique in differentyers. Most extremely high end jutsu''s use it when molding the chakra internally which is why the number of hand signs need for them tends to get rather ridiculous if you don''t know how toyer your chakra manually." she said seriously.


    She then held out her hand and the familiar glow of blue chakra manifested above her palm. To my astonishment however it began to form a swirl yet if you looked closer the chakra underneath the swirl waspletely still. Mito was sweating heavily while focused on her palm entirely before retracting her chakra and panting in exhaustion.

 Taijutsu progress and massacre

    Taijutsu progress and massacre


    "Is the technique chakra heavy or really just that hard?" i asked curiously since she seemed quite wore out from that demonstration.


    "A bit of both, usually the technique is only learned at the Jonin level and I am only a special Jonin and only then because I am a Kenjutsu specialist." Mito said honestly.


    "I see and you said it was just separating my chakra into differentyers?" I asked and she nodded while taking many gulps from her jug.


    Holding up my palm i began to concentrate my chakra there and a head sized gout of blue me looking energy shot out and I began to try and separate it into two parts with one moving clockwise and the other moving counter clockwise. even though the energy was still connected.


    "Like this?" I asked holding out my hand.


    "It''s extremely rough but that''s pretty much the first step to the technique. Also just how much damned chakra do you have?" Mito asked in astonishment.


    "No idea, so if this is all I need then i should figure it out on my next attempt." I said and started flowing my chakra into my hands in small amount and using thisyer technique created five edged from the tip of my finger all the way to the base of them.


    Reaching out for an apple it got torn apart under my grip and I smiled triumphantly. "Ha! Pincers copied!" I said smiling, pleased with the result.


    Mito looked at my mom "No seriously where on earth did you find this monster at and do they have any more?" she asked eagerly.


    My mom just shook her head helplessly "Just him I''m afraid, he was a lucky find to be honest as we would have entirely missed him had he not had this staggering affinity to animals that caused them to gather at his grandmothers house. The poor woman kept putting up missions find the solution but no one could figure it out until he got that scorpion. Running theory is he was born with some sort of bloodline mutation that makes him like this. We adopted him since Aoi and I can''t have children ourselves and his abilities are right up our alley." she said honestly with a proud smile.-


    Mito left after that but kept showing up every now and then topare her chakra flow to my own which seemed to help her a lot as she got much better each time I saw her. As for me I spent a couple of days getting my new pincer form down before I started to try and copy Rens stinger and poison chakra. The movements were easy to get a handle on but the transformation from chakra to poison was a problem. As I found out it wasn''t as simple as I hoped and could only give up for now and settle for just having the first form of my new taijutsu style done.-


    Iruka sensei was not happy at all when I showcased the new form in a spar with Sasuke. Apparently chakra flow was WAY too dangerous to be used in a friendly spar as he stopped the fight the moment he saw me use it. The rest of the form was a great sess though as with pincer form I could grip my opponent like an inescapable vise before using stinger form with my other hand to deal serious damage to my opponent, I was banned from using stinger form. That lead me to my next form in my Taijutsu style, Cat form.-


    For this form I mimicked the way my cat would walk,y, run and attack things before adding chakra flow to my fingers toplete the form. Just like with Rens ability to turn chakra to poison I couldn''t figure out how to copy my cats ability to blend into shadows as well. It was frustrating to be honest as I sensed the way its chakra moved when it used it''s ability and copied it down to the tiniest detail yet failed to replicate the ability. This Taijutsu form was not banned so long as I didn''t use chakra flow thankfully.-


    Naruto was jealous of my new moves but when I tried to teach him he ended up injured in most cases as his body wasn''t made for the forms. I also had no clue how to train him so he could use the forms either. Sasuke was not a big fan of my new cat form though as he couldn''tnd a hit since I would dodge in strange contortions. Iruka sensei begged me to move up a grade again but I said no again. Before I could start working on copying my hawk something happened that shook the vige to it''s core, the uchiha n was massacred.-


    The worse part was I FELT it happen through the natural energy of the vige. One moment everything was normal and the next lives were being snuffed out one after the other far in the distance from our house. You know that one quote from star wars where Obi wan is all like "I feel a great disturbance in the force like many lives crying out in terror before suddenly being silenced" that is the best way to describe what I was feeling.-


    It was too much death all at once and all I could do was curl up in my bed and cry as I weathered the sensation of an hundreds of lives being put out in a short amount of time. If I had been as attuned to nature as I was now I imagine that I would have felt the death brought about by the nine tails attack so long ago as well. Three hours, that was all it took for the entire Uchiha n to be killed. When it was done and over with there was no peace to be found for me, I almost wanted to beg for something, anything to fill the void I felt in that direction.-


    The whole vige was in a buzz about the massacre the next day but I refused to leave my home as even hourster I was shivering and had red puffy eyes from shedding tears uncontrobly. I wasn''t alright for at least a week after the event and even then my nerves were raw and I snapped at people for even the smallest thing for the rest of the month. It took that long for the void in the uchihapound to start getting filled with normal nature energy again and thus ease up on my senses.-


    Sasuke was not much better off than me when he finally returned to ss as he mourned his n and family and held an unfathomable hatred for his brother Itachi. Our spars got violent as we both sought the sweet focus of pain to soothe our minds if for but a moment. It wasn''t even a matter of skill but pure brutality as we just stood in ce and punched the other while eating punches. We were stopped before it went too far and no one knew why I was so affected by the massacre as well since there was no one I was willing to share my secret of being a sage with.

 Significance and training

    Significance and training


    It wasn''t a matter of trust really so much as I finally understood just how bad it would be for someone to figure it out before I reached a certain level of power after searching for information on sages. Sage hood was a top tier sort of power in this world ording to what I found and one that very few shinobi have every had the ability to reach but that countless wish for. If the world learned I was a natural born sage my life would basically be over as wars might be started just to get rid of or to possess me.-


    Not to mention I very much doubted that the vige wouldn''t try it''s hardest to figure out how i am a sage as well even if it meant my own death. I wasn''t stupid, all this "will of fire" talks and speeches that regrly get drilled into the heads of everyone in the academy was basically brainwashing. It was subtle of course but the fact remained that it was designed to turn people into the willing soldiers of the vige willing to do whatever it took to help theirrades.-


    To top it off I was fairly certain that everyone past a certain age knew about it and merely saw it as normal and not concerning at all. Look I could understand why it was done since ninjas were basically weapons of mass destruction at Jonin and beyond levels from the records I saw and thus needed to be controlled. My whole issue was that this same brainwashing was a massive threat to my life if my secret ever got out past myself before I was too powerful for it to matter. The funny part is I didn''t have any doubts that if given enough time I would reach that level of power.-


    Every part of my body at a gic level was getting refined and perfected every second I was in sage mode in a VERY slow but continual march forward. As I matured physically it became clear to me thatparing me to anyone around me was pointless. My skin, muscles, bones and organs were all much denser and more powerful than anyone I had ever seen giving me durability like I was made of stone and strength like a bear on steroids.-


    My brain and chakrawork were also highly efficient and worked faster than anyone I could find. The closest I could find as far as brain functioning was Shikamaru and nobody in terms of chakrawork. All of this was also improving the older I got which was why it was so easy for me to improve my chakra control and to learn and remember new information. With advantages like this it would be a joke if I didn''t be powerful given enough time. Despite these advantages however I was not a wless existence that just naturally was more skilled then everyone else without any effort. -


    Quite the contrary in fact as while I did indeed require less effort than others to improve I did need to put in some effort as well. A good example would be my current issue of hitting a bottleneck on my chakra control training. The standard practices of holding a leaf on my head, walking up a tree and on water had stopped giving any results despite adding handicaps and rules to the training as well. For the leaf training I attached a leaf to each of my limbs including my head and then went to practice with my cat form that should have shaken them off for any other ninja without strict control of their chakra.-


    Despite moving about and creating a vast amount of winds from wind resistance as I went all out using the form I stopped having issues keeping the leaves in ce after a few dozen failures. Then I moved on to tree walking where I taught myself how to climb using only the tips of my toes and fingers and even how to do so silently while moving at full speed. I could go from the groundpletely still to the top of a tree without a sound using only my finger and toe tips in an instant after failing to pull it off about thirty seven times.-


    The trick there was precise application of arge amount of chakra from those points that I dispersed and reapplied in the split second before my fingers and toes would touch the tree. Finally was my water walking training that was basically just my tree walking training but on a surface that moved under me and wasn''t solid. It only took me twelve tries to get it down though and I started practicing underwater movement instead.-


    It was a bit different then one would imagine as the water didn''t like someone with air in them being under it as a matter of buoyancy. The trick was that you had to "grab" the water under your feet and turn it solid with your chakra before pushing off of it. I found that creating ayer of chakra on top of your skin also greatly reduced the drag from moving thus allowing rapid movements underwater. I used the pond nearby my house for this particr training much to my parents irritation since I caused a lot of water discement until I got it down.-


    At the end of all this training was me who now had a frankly freakish level of control over my own chakra ording to my parents and Mito but was unhappy because it still wasn''t perfect. I still wasted minute amounts of chakra each time I used it simply due to how damned hard it was to only use a small amount of my massive reserve. Neji and Hinata weren''t shy about using their Byakugan and as a result the fact my chakra reserve was second only to Naruto was public knowledge and in addition to my being the undisputed strongest in my ss lead to a new type of problem, women.-


    After Sasuke turned into an asshole that was single mindedly chasing power for revenge a great deal of the girls my age and even slightly older started trying to get my attention. Amongst them was Ino who unlike Sakura figured out that she didn''t have a shot with mr. grumpy and chose to pursue another and arguably better option, I was not pleased. I may have been the same age as her technically but mentally I was much more mature and thus refused to even think of entertaining romance until a girl was at least sixteen.


    In other words I made it bluntly clear that I wouldn''t be even vaguely interested for another ten years at minimum. The irritating part was that she didn''t care at all and still tried to get my attention whenever she could. I ended up using my snake to keep her at a distance which caused Iruka sensei and I to have a disagreement. He found threatening my ssmates uneptable and I found his disagreement of it uneptable, the principal ended up getting involved and apromise was met. I couldn''t threaten anyone but Iruka had to stop Ino from bothering me as well.

 An outsiders perspective

    An outsiders perspective


    (POV Danzo)


    Recent events had me considering breaking my own rules and killing that brat despite the clear talent he has shown and the great value he holds for the leaf in the future. It had all started when I met the boy face to face after Hiruzen nearlypletely ruined years of work. The boy was no simple minded child and had sniffed out the problems surrounding the nine tails current hosts situation and past. I had specifically spread the rumor of the Uzumaki child being the demon fox in hopes of keeping him suppressed by the hatred of his fellow vigers.


    Hiruzen likely had suspicions that it was the case but I had left no evidence behind to tie it back to me. My n was working well too until Kenzo Mizuyama came into the picture and ruined most of it. The damned brat began to fix the Uzumaki childs intentionally created ws such as his poor foundational knowledge and self confidence. While problematic this was still eptable as so long as the child didn''t learn the truth of his own significance and most likely seek revenge against the vige.-


    Just revealing the boys heritage got dangerously close to aplishing this which was why I put a stop to that whole conversation after it nearly reached the point of being unredeemable. My small sh with Hiruzen was insignificant but as he had forbidden me from making a move on Kenzo I moved to intimidate the child instead since I had assumed that would bring him under control, I was mistaken. I am not sure how exactly the brat aplished it but after that brief encounter I had been defecated on no less than fifty times by birds and been stung, bitten or harassed by many different insects hundreds of times.-


    The worse part was that not even Torune Aburame who worked under me could find any trace of the insects being controlled via chakra or any other method imaginable. The brats affinity for animals was a mysterious and highly valuable ability and even secretly obtaining samples of his cells from his visits to the hospital from his regr check ups revealed no abnormalities. No kekkai genkai, mutations, chemical anomaly or other exnation for his ability tomand seemingly all forms of animal life could be found.-


    In fact through my thorough investigations of the boy he only had two facets that stood out with one he hid well but had been noticed by the people observing his body and the other being impossible to ignore. The first was that his body was extremely dense and despite the boy trying to hide it clearly had a very high amount of innate physical strength. The second facet was that the boy had frankly terrifying amounts of chakra. ording to my Hyuga subordinate the boys chakra reserve was onlycking inparison to the jinchuriki of the nine tails.-


    This fact left me and many others in the vige confused as the boy had no exceptional ancestry or strange mutation that would exin it. At the same time I had personally confirmed that he also wasn''t secretly a jinchuriki that another vige had slipped in as the current generation of the tailed beast hosts were all ounted for. Despite my own unwillingness I could only admit that the boy was the exception to the rules, an anomaly. Frustratingly though Hiruzen had noticed the boy slightly before me and had made it clear that I wasn''t to bother the boy to recruit him or any such thing. -


    It was a tragedy as I was sure that only I could fully utilize the boys potential while making him absolutely loyal to Konoha. After clearing the vige of influenced insects and birds that would attack me I had turned my attention to a different matter of concern, the unrest of the Uchiha n. It wasn''t long after the new year at the academy started that it was finally time to wipe out this troublesome n for good. Itachi yed his part nearly perfectly but left a lifeline for the n in the form of his younger brother whom I was helpless to deal with since Itachi had threatened to share vige secrets to the other viges if I did.-


    Hiruzen was also especially unhappy about the massacre and stripped me of a vast amount of my power by disbanding the root officially and integrating them with the anbu. It was a massive set back that forced me to temporarily suspend most of my ns. It wasn''t a total loss however as I also obtained a vast amount of Uchiha DNA and sharingan eyes of various stages. Unfortunately I was unable to obtain Fugaku''s eyes which were suspected to be mangekyou due to Itachi destroying them.-


    That was when I obtained some rather interesting information on Kenzo, he was acting out of character after the massacre. For anyone not aware this would seem like he was in grief for the lost n like he had friends in it but I knew for a fact he did not. The only Uchiha he had any real amount of interaction with was Itatchi''s younger brother Sasuke and even then it was one sided rivalry from the Uchiha boys side. Yet despite thisplete disconnect from the n the boy acted as though he was the one suffering from it''s loss.-


    My intuition was telling me that there was something to this but I simply couldn''t figure out what it was. The npound had seals in ce to prevent sensor ninjas from peering into it so the boy couldn''t have indirectly witnessed the massacre. I dug around the boy and sent probes to see if his adoptive parents knew anything but they were just as clueless as everyone else or at least appeared to be very convincingly. About a month after the massacre the boy had settled down but had a clear drive now that concerned me.-


    The few things the boy had revealed publicly made him make even the fourth Hokage look normal as he had mastered two chakra control techniques at his young age that gave him chunin level lethality when paired with the strange taijutsu he seemed to be creating by mimicking his chakra beasts. The trouble Hiruzen would have assigning him a Jonin mentor and regr teammatese the boys graduation did nothing to ease my own concerns with the boy. He was already too powerful and by the time he graduated I very much doubted he wouldn''t be even more powerful.-


    Thankfully I knew that at most the boy would only reach special jonin levels of power while in the academy due to the severe restrictions that students had on jutsu they could learn. At most an academy student was allowed to learn C rank jutsu which was a rule even the ns respected. This meant that unless the boy somehow figured out how to create his own higher ranked jutsu from whichever ones his adoptive family got him to learn that was his limit and I know from experience working on vacuum release jutsu that this is no simple thing like improving ones chakra control.

 Ninjutsu and plans

    Ninjutsu and ns


    (Regr POV)


    Once I was able to keep Ino from bothering me during my time in the academy I made good progress with my taijutsu style. Sasuke being ever the grumpy try hard made an excellent practice dummy to test the effectiveness of what I came up with after the mimicry of each of my beasts wasplete. For example I learned that my hawk form despite being a faithful recreation of the way my hawk moved was absolute garbage. See I used my arms like wings and my feet as the talons but in a spar this simply didn''t work.-


    As a result I had to remove the form from the style entirely as using my hands as talons basically only aplished the same thing my scorpion form did. I was only a little disappointed about this but chalked it up to simply how creating and refining a taijutsu style worked. It was only in my third year at the academy that I was forced to stop working on my taijutsu style and switch to learning ninjutsu as that was the focus of that point onward. First was the three basic jutsu that every ninja was supposed to know, substitution, clone and transformation jutsus.-


    Substitution jutsu was the art of switching yourself out for something else nearby before you took damage. Clone jutsu was using chakra to create clones of yourself though the technique was highly wed with the clones being unable to take hits or directly attack either. That jutsu in particr caught my attention as my snake could do something simr except the clones it created could both take hits and dish them out too. The final jutsu, transformation was a bit peculiar in that it used chakra to change ones appearance to anything roughly the same size as you were.-


    This jutsu much like the clone jutsu was wed in that if you took any damage it was canceled and had several other ws as well such as needing to match ones chakra signature, the drain on the chakra reserves and even that it required absolute precision in the image you created. In other words it was basically useless against experienced ninjas unless you specialized in stealth and espionage. Still in order to graduate you needed to be able to use all three jutsu at minimum.-


    ''I feel like I might have over trained my chakra control.'' I thought with a frown as I pulled off the jutsus on my first time without any issue.


    The issue was that everyone in the ss was staring at me in surprise since Iruka sensei had confirmed that nobody knew how to use it before he demonstrated it for us. The jutsu were all just that simple when it came to how you needed to mold your chakra.


    "Very good Kenzo, you are already ready to graduate if you would like to apply for it." Iruka said with a hopeful look.


    "And good would that do me besides painting a target on my back during missions? Everyone knows that if you see a kid much younger than the rest of his squadmates they are a genius and should be killed before they can grow." I said shaking my head.


    Iruka sensei grimaced but clearly couldn''t argue with that logic as it was very much true. It might not be a written rule for any of the viges but it was one of those things that everyone did if they came in contact with such a situation. Early graduation was not a good idea at all unless I was only a year or two younger than my squadmates at which point I would likely not stand out in terms of age.-


    It was one of those things I had over others my age in that I looked older than I was as I was tall and my body was deceptively muscr. By that I mean you couldn''t tell that I was pure refined muscle under my clothes with how lean I was. If I was on earth I would be considered a freak of nature as an eight year old should not have such a body but in this world it wasn''t that strange at all thanks to chakra making physical training not so detrimental at my age.-


    A good example was Rock Lee who trained his own body relentlessly since he couldn''t mold his chakra. Not that he didn''t have any mind you, just that he couldn''t shape it into ninjutsu. This wasn''t a skill issue either but a sort of birth defect in a way that was rare but not unheard of. Anyways his way of training meant despite being about the same age his body was also very muscr and freakish by earth standards.-


    Anyways I had basically already decided that I was going to graduate in two years rather than the four that it normally would have taken. The reason was very simple as well, restrictions. I was well aware that while I was in the academy the highest rank of jutsu I would be able to get ess to would be the C rank ones. Not to mention I was starting to have issues improving my taijutsu style as despite mimicking my beasts perfectly none of my ssmates were skilled enough to help me find any ws in the style and as a result I was having trouble finding them myself.-


    I imagined that the same would likely hold true for ninjutsu as well but thankfully there were a lot of those avable at the lower ranks so I could always just move to another after I got stuck with one. My Idea was quite simple as far as learning ninjutsu was concerned, I wanted one of each. I had already tested my affinity by purchasing some chakra paper to test it and discovered my chakra was split equally between all seven natures with each being just as strong as the others.-


    Obviously I hadn''t revealed this information since something told me that it was rted to my sage mode constantly being active. After some reading up on chakra natures I patted myself on the back for my wisdom as most people have only a single dominant nature and a few have at most three but no one had all seven be dominant like me. An interesting thing I figured out was how to "lie" to the paper about my affinity by purposefully off bncing my chakra. Thanks to this I maintained the illusion of being a genius as my paper test showed earth, lightning and yang affinities.-


    Basically my paper crinkled, crumbled and expanded when I ran chakra through it in front of my parents. I couldn''t keep my chakra off bnce for long though or I started to stiffen from the nature energy rampaging in my body. I wasn''t entirely sure what would happen if I left my chakra unbnced but something told me I didn''t want to find out. Still thanks to showing my affinities to my parents they promised to try and find some low rank jutsus for me to learn.

 Jutsu

    Jutsu


    The earth and lightning jutsu were easy enough for my parents to get but the yang release jutsu was much harder to the point they t out told me they couldn''t do it. The only yang release jutsu in the vige were either much too high rank for them to get for me or belonged almost exclusively to the Akimichi n. There was a single exception in the form of medical ninjutsu that in most cases didn''t have anything to do with the ranking system for jutsu. Ironically I was both perfectly suited to and ill suited for medical jutsu.-


    Well suited because the basis for learning it was extreme chakra control and ill suited because I frankly felt like it was a waste of time to learn. One should note that medical ninjutsu wasn''t just a one and done affair where you learn the jutsu and you are good to go, no to really get the most out of the stuff you needed to learn a bunch of misceneous knowledge as well such as botany, toxicology, cellr biology, anatomy, gics, chakra mutation theory and much much more.-


    I had little doubt if I focused my time on the subject that I would do great at it but I was sorta a perfectionist and would definitely waste a lot of the time I could have spent learning normal jutsu to grow stronger on the stuff. Perhaps in the future when I had grown strong enough that no one could casually decide to kill me off I would return to the subject but for now I had to content myself with the three earth and three lightning jutsu I got copies of from my parents. The copies went from E rank to C rank and were basically the upgraded versions of the E rank jutsu of that nature.-


    For earth the E rank jutsu was {Mole jutsu} that let one dive underground. The D rank upgrade to this was {Headhunter jutsu} that dragged a target under ground up to their necks leaving them vulnerable. Finally the C rank jutsu was {Hiding like a mole jutsu} which allowed the user to basically travel freely below ground without making any disturbances at the surface. It was clear to me that this line of jutsu was designed for escape or sneak attacking an enemy.-


    For the lightning release line of jutsu however it was clearly designed for training someone to use ranged lightning attacks. The E rank jutsu was {Spark jutsu} that basically created an electrical current on ones hands that served like a weak taser on contact.The D rank upgrade was {Zap jutsu} that allowed you to send a stronger but short range current of electricity towards an opponent within three meters of you. The C rank upgrade of that was {Crash jutsu} that was literally just a stronger form of zap jutsu with a much longer range.


    For the earth line of jutsu there were from lowest to highest rank five, seven and eleven hand signs needed to gain initial mastery of them that built off of the original five. It was Tiger, Hare, Boar, Boar, Dog for the E rank mole jutsu. Tiger, Hare, Boar, Boar, Dog, Tiger, Rat for the D rank headhunter jutsu. Tiger, Hare, Boar, Boar, Dog, Tiger, Rat, Hare, Snake, Rat, Boar for the hiding like a mole jutsu. Thankfully the hand signs weren''t strictly necessary so long as one could remember the way the chakra was molded by using them. Since the jutsu weren''tplex this meant the molding was also not veryplex.-


    Thus I managed to get rid of the hands signs entirely with only three months of practice for the all three jutsu. I did discover a ratherrge issue when using the jutsu however in the form of the energy I used to fuel them. If I used just normal chakra then everything was fine but if I used sage chakra instead things got out of hand. Sage chakra supercharged and altered the effects of the jutsu. Mole jutsu turned everything within five meters of me into quicksand while I went fairly deep underground in an instant.-


    Headhunter jutsu did the same at a much wider range and dragged anything standing on top of that sand under it trapping it there before the ground returned to normal. Hiding like a mole technique created a two dozen meter wide pit of quicksand that dragged those standing on it underneath it quite far but it also allowed me free movement under the ground that then solidified back into stone. I called these enhanced jutsu sage jutsu due to them using my sage chakra to aplish them. I also never used them in front of anyone after discovering them since they would cause people to ask questions I didn''t want to answer.-


    I wasn''t the only one working on ninjutsu though as Sasuke was also working his C rank fireball jutsu into abat ready state. Naruto and the rest were also was working hard to try and master the three basic ninjutsu. It was during this training with Naruto that I noticed something unusual about his chakra, it rebelled. I don''t mean like his chakra control simply sucked(it did by the way) but like his chakra itself didn''t want to listen to his instructions and even seemed to try and sabotage him actively.-


    Unless someone was constantly paying attention to his chakra reserve it would have been nearly impossible to notice and could easily be mistaken for terrible chakra control. The thing was though that I had my senses constantly extended and as a result was in fact sensing his chakra reserve nonstop. I also noticed that the rebellion was only happening when he went to use some form of ninjutsu and not when he was doing chakra control exercises like leaf holding or tree walking. Despite this weirdness however I couldn''t figure out the reason for this no matter how much I looked.-


    Once I mastered the earth release jutsu I moved on to the lightning jutsu which had two, six and ten hand signs from E rank jutsu to the C rank one. Ox and Monkey for the spark jutsu. Ox, Monkey, Snake, Snake. Rat, Dog for the zap jutsu. Ox, Monkey, Snake, Snake. Rat, Dog, Ram, Hare, Snake, Ox for crash jutsu. Unlike the earth release jutsu i needed six months to fully remove all the handsigns for this line of jutsu and that was mostly because I had to deal with the after shocks of the jutsu.-


    As it turned out lightning jutsu had this really irritating habit of shocking the person using it which meant that I had to build up a resistance to higher amounts of electricity each time I started working on the next most powerful jutsu in the line. I won''t say this wasted time because it was an important step for being able to use higher ranked lightning jutsu but that didn''t mean it was pleasant at all. Adding sage chakra to the jutsu line was also a very poor idea without building up resistance to the normal crash jutsu''s shock, as I learned the hard way and got the full brunt of that amount of electricity covering my entire body.

 Body flicker

    Body flicker


    "Having trouble with the lightning release eh?" my dad asked with a smirk after seeing my hair standing on end and dark scorch marks on my arms.


    "Nobody mentioned that they shock the user as well." I retorted irritably.


    "We did that on purpose since you needed a reminder that it isn''t so easy being a ninja. A set back every now and again is good for you." my mom said honestly.


    "You say that but I have already mastered all three of the jutsu you gave me and don''t need handsigns to use them anymore." I said and they both looked surprised and confused.


    "If that''s true then why are you so badly burnt?" my dad asked.


    "I was experimenting to see if I could improve the jutsu even further and it went out of control." I said honestly.


    "There is a reason academy students aren''t allowed to have higher ranked jutsu you know." My mom scolded me.


    "I was trying to improve the spark jutsu though." Iined.


    "Ah! You were hoping to add the prative effect of lightning release to your taijutsu style right?" My dad asked with an understanding look.


    That wasn''t even remotely true but I wasn''t going to correct him since it was a good cover story.


    "We chose those two lines of jutsu because we were trying to get you away from taijutsu. For most shinobi taijutsu is ast resort type thing and ninjutsu is far safer. With your chakra volume it''s downright wasteful for you not to use ninjutsu." my mom said with a frown.


    "Which was the only reason I even bothered learning those jutsu at all. That doesn''t mean they aren''t way weaker than my taijutsu though. Crash jutsu barely destroys an inch in a tree while one good chop with chakra flow cuts it in half." I said to prove my point.


    My mom sighs "Of course chakra flow is much stronger than crash jutsu, it''s a B rank technique that you were only allowed to learn early because you had already figured it out on your own for the most part. But theres nothing we can do about it as the limit we are allowed to teach you is C rank while you are in the academy." she said helplessly.


    "So what you are saying is that I should keep training my taijutsu then? Got it." I said with a smirk.


    "You could just graduate and and learn stronger jutsu." My dad pointed out.


    "Like I told Iruka sensei I would rather not have a target on my back every time my squad takes a mission out of the vige. I will wait until I can pass for the average graduation age before graduating." I said seriously.


    "As much as I would like to argue about it you do have a point about being targeted. Can you at least try and focus on ninjutsu?" she asked hopefully.


    "What''s to focus on? I have already mastered all three jutsu of each of the lines you gave me and unless you get me more I have nothing to focus on." I said honestly.


    As it turned out that was precisely what they did as I got the E rank earth jutsu {earth move} and the C rank upgrade {earth wall}. I also got the C rank {body flicker jutsu} and the C rank lightning jutsu {sh kick}. Earth move and earth wall were staple defensive earth release jutsu and were useful even for Jonin thanks to the small amount of time they could buy to escape an attack.


    Body flicker jutsu was very interesting however as it was actually a jutsu that could be used to make up for onesck of speed in a taijutsu battle. Basically you molded your chakra before sending it to your feet and kicking off of something to move so fast you appear to teleport. It had one big w however that caused me to crash into a tree the first time I used it, you moved faster than your eyes could process if you were new to using it. I hadn''t realized that until I was breaking my nose against the trunk of a tree.-


    Even more fascinating was that it wasn''t an inflexible amount of distance you covered either but with mastery you could move anywhere from a few meters away to nearly fifty yards almost instantly. ording to my parents the person who was best at it was called Shisui Uchiha and he could even use the jutsu to create after images. Sadly like the rest of the Uchiha n he was dead though he apparently killed himself before the massacre. Sounded a bit sketchy in my opinion but it was what it was.-


    sh kick was arguably the most suspicious jutsu my parents could have given me because it literally covered a single leg with lightning that you kicked at your target. You may as well have called it an elemental taijutsu move with how close to being a purely physical attack it was. As it turned out I was wrong, see the lightning you sent off exploded on contact with the target which meant if you were up close and personal you got hit too. The "kicking" involved was less an actual kick so much as it was you ejecting the projectile jutsu away from you, you could even use your hands for it if you wanted.-


    The sh kick jutsu took me a month to master but the body flicker jutsu took me well into my fourth year to use it to travel the full fifty meters the jutsu allowed without handsigns. The really hard part of learning it was that I had to improve my reaction time by a lot so that I processed my surroundings and was able to move again the moment I came to a stop. I was convinced that whoever Shisui was though he cheated with the sharingan in order to pull of the after image trick.-


    The only time I could create one was if I used body flicker without giving myself the brief moment to process my surroundings after the first use. In other words back to back body flickering was the only way to pull it off and that didn''t exactly work if you were effectively blind and deaf the whole time. At MOST I could see a blur when I used the jutsu and while my reaction time was improving rapidly from hard long practice sessions that was nowhere good enough to create after images.-


    My parents said that was an impressive enough achievement but I wasn''t happy with it because being second best never feels right unless the difference was impossible to cover and I could feel that it wasn''t. In a way I suppose that was how Sasuke felt constantly being under me in terms of strength and skill even if he was higher ranked in the ss. Nothing for it though since academics simply didn''t interest me any and I was toozy to put in more effort in those subjects.

 New beasts and improved taijutsu

    New beasts and improved taijutsu


    Oh how Sasuke loathed me too. He was almost hostile about his anger at never forcing me to use my full power or ever winning one of our spars. Iruka sensei tried to offer us new sparring partners but I didn''t care either way and Sasuke vehemently rejected the idea.


    "If I am ever going to kill my brother I need to be the best and until I win against Kenzo that will never happen!" he had said firmly.


    Iruka sensei was helpless at that point and could only let Sasuke futilely try and close the distance between us. See the thing about closing gaps was that you had to actually understand exactly how vast the gap was before you could say you did. Nobody in the world had a single clue what my full power was and I worked quite hard to keep it that way. By my fifth and final year at the academy I couldunch solidified air with a single punch that packed so much sheer power that if it hit a normal person they would turn into bloody mist.


    I know that because I used it on a normal wild boar about as big as a person and that was what happened. In a rted note I had been slipping away in secret since the Uchiha massacre to train since I couldn''t do so any more in the regrly used parts of the vige or my house without exposing my strength. Funnily enough I had earned a bit of a reputation in the vige from the way I looked and acted. I was eleven this year and had matured in a decidedly strange way by now. My body was literally as durable as steel to the point I could deflect regr sword strikes with my skin alone without getting even a scratch.-


    Beyond that my wild ck hair never grew past my shoulders and hung wildly from my head. I was about five seven at this point which put me above average but not extremely tall. My body was entirelyprised of dense but flexible muscle not that you could tell since my favorite outfit was a loose mesh shirt covered by a long bark brown cloak and matching cargo pants. I also had to wear gloves because my fingernails were all highly durable and sharp implements that could do a lot of damage if I wasn''t careful.-


    In terms of attractiveness I was not too bad looking with sharp features and green eyes. I was by no means a super model but I could definitely be considered above average in that department. Thanks to my secret training sessions I had also obtained another three chakra beasts who like the rest all got Rens treatment of a small injection of sage chakra when I got them. Any of the really powerful and dangerous chakra beasts near the vige had been killed long ago so like Ren the ones I found were all budding chakra beasts and my sage chakra gave them thest push into true chakra beast territory.-


    After the initial "jump start" if you would all my beast naturally developed a chakra ability unique to them. Some like Kibas ability to cloak himself in lightning had jutsu that mimicked them such as the Raikages lightning chakra mode. While others like my snakes ability to create physical clones from it''s chakra instead had pale imitations such as clone jutsu and shadow clone jutsu. Neither of which could withstand being attacked like my snakes clones could. I wasn''t allowed to learn shadow clone jutsu due to it''s high rank but that didn''t mean I wasn''t aware of how it worked.-


    Anyways my three new beasts were Mizuhe the cricket with the ability to elementalize itself into mist. A bear cub that referred to himself as Kuma and had the ability to absorb sunlight and after mixing it with chakra release it like it was Godzi''s atomic breath, I REALLY wanted that ability. My final beast was also my weirdest since it was a caterpir that ate chakra and thought my chakra was the tastiest. Did I mention it was the size of my leg and had rainbow colors?-


    Oh you should have seen my dads reaction to the thing, pure confusion like he had no idea what the heck he was even looking at. Not that I could me him since I couldn''t identify the things species either despite going through every record of insects I could find. The not so small caterpir was also the only chakra beast I found at that level and hadn''t needed the jump start from my sage chakra, which it got anyways out of tradition. I had tested it with Ren but giving more sage chakra to my beast didn''t actually do anything after the initial jump start so I didn''t give them anymore after that.-


    Mimicking my new beasts finally patched up a ring issue with my taijutsu style in the form of my legscking ways to contribute beyond moving or hind kicks. I gained two new moves with my cricket form in the form of a forward kick that used EVERY muscle in my legs and a blurringly fast forward tackle. Mimicking Kuma gave me the strongest but also slowest form of the style that utilized absolute force above all else but needed the longest time to prepare.-


    It was a bit likepressing a spring as I primed every muscle in my body while coating my arm in chakra to lessen the strain on it. My bodies full power sent through a single limb in a single attack caused a lot of devastation but at the same time came with it''s own recoil as without the chakra coating my arm I would snap it in two ces severely. That was a lesson I learned the hard way and needed to somehow exin away to get the arm treated.-


    Mimicking my caterpir didn''t me any positives besides a creative new way to use chakra to attack. It was basically just punching or kinking and following the physical attack with a projected fist or foot made out of chakra like an echo, I called it chakrag. It was nastily effective too if my opponent didn''t know about it before hand as after dodging the physical attack most people rxed their guards subconsciously since there was a time gap before I could attack again. It was small but everyone had the same problem which was what made the echo that came during that gap devastating.-


    It was exactly like dodging a punch and without that person recovering or even stopping the original punch getting decked out of nowhere. I am pleased to inform that I got asked to record the technique down and it was given a rank of B much the same as chakra flow. Unlike chakra flow however it was not so simple to learn for others and apparently even the third Hokage took about five attempts to get the hang of it. The same Hokage who mastered every chakra nature and could use any jutsu that wasn''t a kekkai genkai in the vige , he needed to try multiple times to grasp it.

 Nature transformation

    Nature transformation


    The Hokage did exin that the reason he didn''t get it on the first time wasn''t that it was too hard to dopared to chakra flow but rather that it was counter productive if the one using it wasn''t good at timing their attacks perfectly. Specifically the technique involved purposefully dying ones chakra before bursting it out in a heavy but controlled manner to attack. Most jutsu instead rely on a constant smooth flow of chakra to use hence why the technique was very tricky to pull off in the correct timing.-


    "It''s a simple but ingenious technique that adds a level of unpredictability to whoever uses it, very well done indeed young man!" The Hokage praised as I stood in his office after he had performed my technique.


    "I was just trying to improve my taijutsu style is all." I said honestly.


    "Ah yes I was curious about that, it''s quite interesting from what little I have observed. You took inspiration from the Inuzuka ns taijutsu correct?" he asked and I nodded.


    "Rather than focus on a single beast however I wondered if I could mimic all of them instead and if so just how powerful would it be? So far it has been quite a sessful idea though regrettably none of my ssmates have the skill needed to help me refine each form past the initial stage." I said excitedly.


    "It is a struggle all pioneers of a path face at some point. Did you know that my own sensei the second Hokage Tobirama Senju faced simr challenges when he created a new jutsu?" The hokage said with a smile.


    "Really?" I asked genuinely surprised since all the history books painted the man as a genius amongst geniuses who created dozens of powerful jutsu from scratch.


    "It''s true, my sensei would regrly have periods of time where he couldn''t make any progress on a project he was working on and used my teammates and I as sounding boards to try and break through even if none of us understood what he was talking about. There was even this one time when Homura was talking about his dinner and sensei rushed off with sudden inspiration. Talking about a simple pot of curry had helped sensei create the shadow clone and multishadow clone jutsus. It is a fact few know outside my own teammates." The Hokage said with a nostalgic smile.-


    "It sounds like you miss your sensei a lot." I said honestly and he nodded.


    "Yes, I can''t help but wish he had not died when he did and was able to lead the vige for much longer. But it doesn''t do to dwell on what could have been, you lose sight of what could be if you do." He said sternly.


    "I understand, I was wondering if you might help me with something that''s been bothering me for a while now?" I asked hesitantly.


    I had looked and looked and tried for years now but for some reason I was still unable to mimic my beasts chakra abilities. The texts I had ess to were of no help at all as besides mentions of chakra nature transformation there was nothing that exined what I was missing. I couldn''t even figure out what the hell chakra nature transformations were as whatever it was exceeded my C rank limit on knowledge and was kept firmly out of my reach. Not forck of trying mind you as after the first time I cloaked myself in natural energy and slipped into the shinobi archive I got caught because of the seals in ce to detect people in the archive.-


    After that I got caught every damn time I tried a new method to get past those seals.


    "And what is it that is bothering you?" he asked curiously.


    "Well I have been trying to mimic my beasts abilities for a few years now and at first I thought it was because my chakra control wasn''t good enough but that wasn''t it at all. Then I thought it was because I wasn''t molding my chakra right but that wasn''t it either after I learned actual jutsu and understood the difference. I''ve looked and looked at everything I could bellow C rank and all I have found that sounds promising is something called "chakra nature transformation" but it is a higher rank topic so I can''t learn it anywhere." I exined with a little of my frustration slipping out.-


    "Oh? I can see why you are frustrated with yourck of progress in this regard. Your assumption that chakra nature transformation would help you in this endeavor is a partially correct one as well. Historically speaking hand signs actually came after chakra nature transformation did but are more widely epted as the best way to use jutsu due to the ease of use. However when ites to modifying and creating new jutsu chakra nature transformation is a subject all shinobi must learn to seed at."-


    "Normally I would not make an exception for you to learn the information on that subject however it is clear that your chakra control has hit a nearly wless level and as such chakra nature transformation is the logical step forward for you. As for whether it will help you sessfully copy your beasts I will not spoil the surprise." The old man said with a cheerfulugh.


    I got a scroll delivered to me the next day that I was told to memorize the content of and then destroy it in front of the ninja who gave it to me. The content of the scroll was both simple and infuriatingly vague at the same time. Basically the scroll exined how chakra nature transformation was basically changing ones chakra directly into a certain nature. That sounded like a simple thing like just molding chakra with handsigns but it was in fact a totally different thing.-


    The difference was when you used handsigns the chakra was static and only did exactly what you had programmed it to do with the handsigns. By changing ones chakra directly into a certain nature however you can still freeform your chakra and thus have a bunch more freedom to modify and create new jutsus. It just clicked in my mind exactly why I kept failing to mimic my beasts abilities despite copying their chakra movements perfectly. My beasts changed the nature of their chakra before they used their abilities and the movement of the chakra after that was just them molding their transformed chakra into a sort of primitive jutsu.-


    Thankfully the scroll had the methods known for training each form of nature transformation and they seemed easy enough to do, I was wrong. I started by trying to turn my chakra into the lightning nature since it was the one I was most familiar with. The method described was to get a fresh leaf and to "vibrate my chakra " and if I seeded the leaf would crinkle. That was it, that was the entire description about how to transform your chakra into lightning nature. As should be obvious I failed, like a lot. I lost count at about the hundredth attempt but I spent nearly a whole sted month just to make the leaf crinkle a tiny amount.

 Approaching graduation

    Approaching graduation


    It was fairly clear to me that the order of operation that we were taught information was all wrong. The original way was likely chakra control, nature transformation and THEN jutsu and handsigns. By learning jutsu before nature transformation the order was all wrong and the quality of shinobi likely suffered as a result. Don''t get me wrong I totally get why the order is all wrong as with wars and battles leading to deaths and an increased need for fresh meat during battles the way of learning went from "how to create the best ninjas over all" to "how to create the most ninjas in a short amount of time.".


    Shinobi teaching methods switched to a quantity over quality mindset and only the geniuses managed to be quality from it rather than even more potential powerhouses at the cost of a much longer training period. The problem however that I spotted immediately was that no one seemed to remember to switch to the correct order during peacetime or to at least take those talented few and train them the correct way. After figuring this out I felt better at how long I took to consistently crinkle a leaf with nothing but pure chakra.-


    Once Ipleted that step I moved on to learn earth chakra nature transformation which was using chakra to turn a leaf to dirt. You did this by pressing your chakra against a leaf andpressing the chakra on itself within the leaf. If done correctly your leaf should turn into dirt from the earth chakra nature now overwhelming it. I had a little more ease grasping the change in chakra nature this go around since I had experienced what a change in chakra nature felt like with the lightning element training.-


    That didn''t mean it was easy though and I still needed almost a whole month to master the method. After that I moved to fire chakra nature training that was done by exciting ones chakra by a lot which if done correctly will cause the leaf to turn to ash. This sounded simr to the vibrate method of the lightning training but had very different meanings. For lightning training the chakra must still be controlled and shaken in ce but for fire training it was basically just sending your chakra haywire with only general control over it.-


    In a way it was a matter of density as lightning nature chakra was more focused and direct while fire nature chakra was spread out and wild. Once I figured this out it only took me another month to master the chakra transformation to fire to a basic degree like the other two I had done so far. Apparently the Hokage had told Iruka sensei about what I was doing as he was purposefully leaving me alone in ss when I was practicing with a leaf and not paying attention to his lecture. The rest of my ssmates were curious about what I was doing but only the kids from ns figured it out other than Naruto who I told directly.-


    "Ahe on Kenzo you can at least give me a hint right?" the blonde brat begged after I told him I wasn''t going to teach him.


    "While your chakra control isn''t the worst in our ss you are not even close to being good enough at it to learn this stuff. It''s taking me, ME a whole month per nature to grasp the BASICS. You''d probably need years with how bad your control is, well that or the multishadow clone jutsu and a whole bunch of ration pills. Even then I still think you''d take months to get the basics done with. Just keep working on your control and by the time you get to graduation in a year or so you might be ready to learn it." I said honestly.


    "You mean it?" he asked excitedly.


    I nodded "No matter what anyone else tells you you''ve got the potential for great things in you my friend but you''ll need to work harder than anyone else if you want to grasp that potential. With the exception of myself of course, can''t have you surpass me after all." I said with a grin.


    "Just you wait Kenzo, one day I will be even stronger than you! Believe it!" Naruto said determined and smiling widely.


    "Hahaha! Try not to keep me waiting for too long then!" I said with augh.


    I meant every word I said too as there was no way in hell the child of Narutos parents was an untalented idiot. His chakra reserve was even greater than mine and I was a bloody sage since the moment I was born and he was improving quite quickly despite whatever the hell was going on with his rebellious chakra. He couldn''t pull off a clone jutsu entirely because of this factor in fact as whenever he got close the rebellious chakra would cause the stuff he was using to get molded wrong and the amount of chakra being used thus way too much as well.-


    After that Naruto seemed to have a vigor injected into him as he doubled his training and took less breaks than before. His grade in ss also started to improve noticeably as he got better and better in the practical''s even though he failed to get the clone jutsu. By the end of the year I finished grasping all five basic chakra nature transformations and applied for early graduation. I had no more reason to stay in the academy as I easily passed as a normal graduate in terms of age appearance and couldn''t make any more improvement while in the academy.-


    "Are you sure about this Kenzo? Once you take this test there is no going back." my mom asked seriously after I told my parents about it.


    "I am. I am only being held back in the academy at this point, it''s time to move on." I said honestly.


    "In that case we have a present for you that we prepared for the day you graduated." My dad said with a smile as he stood up and retrieved a unusuallyrge scroll from the closet.


    The scroll was nearly as tall as I was but was only about double to width of a normal scroll.


    "This is a special version of a kind of scroll known as a summoning scroll. In most cases a ninja would use a normal summoning scroll to go and find a summon unique and perfect for them. But this version instead will let you create a summoning contract with all your beasts and when you need them most summon them from anywhere in the world without them needing to go with you out of Konoha normally." My mom exined with a smile.-


    I was shocked since I had thought about getting exactly such a thing at one point but the seals needed to make it were soplex that the price of such a thing was well into months of a normal Jonins sry. Yes vige ninjas had sries based on their rank but could earn even more money by taking missions beyond the mandatory ones as well.

 Graduation

    Graduation


    "This must have cost you a fortune, thank you!" I said with a happy smile as I took the scroll.


    "It actually didn''t cost us anything at all since the Lord Hokage himself gave it to us after learning we were looking for one. Wrote the seals himself too!" my mom said with a smile.


    THAT information made me cautious however as the old man didn''t strike me as the sort to just gift things like this for no reason. I opened the scroll and began searching it carefully byparing it to the one I had looked at previous and there was only a single thing that was off, something was already attached to the contract.


    "The old man put something extra in the summoning contract." I said honestly as I showed my parents the mark of something that signed the "summoned" portion of the contract.


    "Perhaps it''s his own summon Enma?" my dad suggested equally in the dark.


    "I''m sure Lord Hokage intended whatever it is as a gift. Why don''t you sign the contract and summon whatever it is out in the yard?" my mom said and I reluctantly agreed.


    Signing a summoning contract is as simple as cutting your thumb and dropping some blood on a particr part of the seals. The actual signatures are usually only added to a nk part of the scroll to keep track of who all has signed the thing. The jutsu for summoning used the boar, dog, bird, monkey and ram hand signs followed by a blood offering usually made by cutting or biting ones thumb. If done correctly when you m you palm down on a surface the thing you are summoning will appear. -


    I signed the contract and went to the yard before going through the handsigns in a split second I mmed my still bloody palm into the ground and arge puff of smoke appeared as I sent a bunch of chakra into the jutsu. The smoke cleared quickly enough to reveal what I had summoned and it wasn''t the monkey king Enma. In the ce I had used the jutsu a creature with ck fur and white stripes that was easily three meters tall and feline in shape stood proudly, a tiger chakra beast and not a weak one either.-


    To my own senses this single beast made Ren and the rest of my beasts look like matches next to a bonfire. A pair ofrge golden eyes arrogantly looked over the surroundings before finally stopping at my own. The massive head of the feline moved forward to sniff me a bit and I was probably grinning like a lunatic as I reached out and rubbed the side of the head that was easily half as big as myself. There was a loud rumble from the beasts throat as I rubbed on it while it''s eyes narrowed in contentment. Yes, I think it''s safe to say I am VERY pleased with the old mans gift.-


    "Lord Hokage himself must have subdued this chakra beast for you. Make sure to thank him when you see him next." My mom said and the tiger directly disproved her.


    "You are mistaken that old man apparently just showed up one day and beat her up before making her sign the contract. In other words he didn''t subdue her at all and we all could have been killed if she wasn''t slightly curious what was going on." I exined what the tiger which was female if that wasn''t clear had told me.-


    "Maybe he just believed in your ability to tame it?" my mom said awkwardly since what else could she say?


    The Hokage had basically just gambled that a child who technically hadn''t even graduated would be able to tame a tiger chakra beast that was close to if not at the high Chunin or low Jonin level. No matter how you look at it that didn''t seem like a positive action at all. In fact I am willing to bet my right arm that this was a test he set up to get me to reveal some of my hand. I am not sure how he does it but I know for a fact the old bastard spies on me as I can feel his gaze on me even when I am nowhere near his office.-


    It had proven irritating too as I couldn''t train properly with him staring at me since I didn''t want to show anything at all to him. The exception to that was when I was doing chakra nature training as he was the one who gave me that information to begin with. As for taijutsu, ninjutsu and senjutsu though? Not a chance in hell.-


    Showing off my full abilities in those subjects was like asking to get in big trouble. It wasn''t illegal to be stronger than you showed normally but it dide with expectations i wanted no part of. Stuff like graduating way too soon and "contributing to the vige" by getting stuck doing a bunch of needlessly difficult missions. People being suspicious about how strong you actually are and knowing it just work differently is all. Even now I felt the old bastards gaze on us and thus treated the extraordinarily soft tiger like a veryrge house cat, take that you old coot!-


    The tiger got the name Akasha in the end and was easily my second favorite beast to nap on, Ren took first because of being surprisingly warm andfortable. After I gave Akasha a whole bunch of sage chakra she even grew stronger and almost had as much chakra as the old man now. You should have seen the look of shock the old man had when he attended my graduation and I summoned her. Akasha even had a really useful ability too as she could teleport short distances and I don''t mean like move so fast that it looked like teleportation but the genuine article.-


    Still my graduation was just as underwhelming as I thought it would be as I walked to the front of the room and performed the three basic jutsu perfectly. For bonus points I summoned Akasha to make everyone there shit themselves. Obviously that didn''t happen but I do know that each and every person in the room got defensive in an instant including the old man. To be fair though I did tell Akasha that the old man would be there so she was ring bloodthirst when she was summoned.-


    They were not amused at the prank at all but I ignored theirints because I thought it was hrious. Beyond that however I made a bunch of people very upset in my ss since I hadn''t told anyone I was graduating early so they were all stuck in the academy for another year. Sasuke looked downright murderous about it and Shikamaruined. Ino was devastated since this meant she would need at least another year to possibly go on missions with me. Naruto annoyed me about it for the rest of the day since he hoped we would be on the same squad but that was honestly thest thing I wanted to happen.

 An old view

    An old view


    Not to say me and Naruto wouldn''t be a formidablebo due to how familiar we are as best friends. But I alone make any squad I am on horribly lopsided as I vastly exceeded any normal graduate in terms of power. Add someone like Naruto to the mix and the squad not only wouldn''t work but would likely ruin thest teammate who likely wouldn''t be able to keep up. In the current case however I would not need to worry about that as the remaining two squadmates would only have me as aparison and thus might only get a little discouraged.-


    (POV Hiruzen)


    I was in quite the pickle this time with the new graduates due to Kenzo alone. While I was happy to see the vige gain an exceptional new shinobi the boy was TOO exceptional. I have been observing the boy frequently over thest few years and despite the boy being highly secretive and sensitive he had let small hints of his true power show. For starters the boy never trained hard when I observed him with the remote viewing jutsu using the special crystal ball in my office.-


    The boy thought himself clever in doing so but instead exposed the fact that he was a highly sensitive sensor nin naturally. Unfortunately this made things rather tricky for me as the remote viewing jutsu was useless to spy on the boy and as a result I couldn''t get a good read on his true strength beyond the small amount he showed on purpose. This meant I had to be both more and less direct in invading the boys privacy. The boy was a creature of habit and as a result had a specific spot away from the rest of the vige that he would go to to train.-


    I had to personally trail the child to find it and what I found left me astonished. Trees destroyed by massive physical forces, massive scorch marks from powerful lightning jutsus being used and signs of powerful earth jutsus as well. The boy wasn''t just hiding a little strength but an unprecedented level of it for someone his age. The signs I found in his training location were like what you might find in a battle with two peak tier chunin that might as well be Jonin but hadn''t gotten the official promotion yet.-


    Not in terms of ninjutsu but rather taijutsu as I had only seen destruction of this sort from pure physical force in the training ground of Might Guy and his father Might Duy. That was a concerning thought in and of itself as in the entire vige no one could im better taijutsu than those two, not even I. Might Duy had long since been dead however and so only Might Guy remained as the premier taijutsu specialist in the vige. While Kenzo was in the academy I had witnessed his taijutsu and while it was new and bursting with potential it was also raw and unrefined. -


    This meant all the destruction I had found was caused nearly entirely by Kenzo''s physical strength alone rather than an application of skill. The jutsu traces I found though seemed like the sort left by B rank jutsu at most which while highly impressive were clearly Kenzo''s weak point. Not that there was much for it as the boy was still within the academy and couldn''t modify any jutsu beyond a certain point even with the use of chakra nature transformation. Normally one would just learn more jutsus to fix such a weakness but Kenzo took a different route via his arguably most powerful ability, his uncanny dominion over beasts.-


    From an uninformed perspective one might think that it was like the Aburame and Inuzuka ns abilities tomand insects and dogs respectively but this was wrong. In both of those ns cases there were very strict and specialized circumstances involved with their control. For the Inuzuka it was because of their lifelong bond with a ninken that allowed them to freely exchange and enhance their bondedpanion and themselves with theirpanions help.-


    For the Aburame n it was a symbiotic rtionship where the insects nested in the members bodies and feasted on their chakra in exchange for beingmanded. It was even a dangerous thing for members of the n as if they ran out of chakra their insects could rebel and kill them. For Kenzo however there was no conditions attached to his ability tomand beasts but rather it was almost as though all animals perceive him as the alpha or ruler that was only natural to obey and follow. We thought that this was due to some form of chakra maniption or genjutsu but both the Uchiha and Hyuga ns members had verified that it wasn''t the case.-


    Then we thought maybe pheromones or a Kekkai Genkai but all tests ran on the boys genes and biological samples said otherwise. That was one of the reasons Danzo and I were both interested in recruiting the boy to our factions. He was an unexinable anomaly as we simply couldn''t exin why Kenzo could find any beast regardless of type or power and immediately recruit it under him. I regretted giving that shadowless tiger to the boy as a test of his upper limit of power as I had gotten a bit sloppy and hadn''t spotted that it was a step away from evolving to an elder tier chakra beast.-


    The creature had evolved by the time Kenzo had graduated and was now just as powerful as the average Jonin with a chakra pool nearly the same size as my own. With that beast alone Kenzo might as well be considered a special Jonin which made choosing a sensei for the boy as well as teammates next to impossible. No normal Jonin could handle him and the few who could I had ns for already or were indisposed.-


    As for teammates I decided to make an exception and ce Kenzo by himself since he might ruin otherwise good seedlings with how much more powerful he is. Actually now that I think about it there is one person who could handle the boy and it may even do some good to hand him over to.


    "Summon my student Tsunade to the vige. She is in a small town at the border in thend of rice at the moment ording to Jiraiya." Imanded and one of the anbu who guard my office vanished.


    Tsunade was a bit disillusioned with the vige at the moment and had developed a fear of blood after too many traumatic events during thest two wars. She had been allowed to roam as she pleased until now but perhaps teaching Kenzo might help her ovee her fears and if we are lucky give Konoha another unrivaled healer. I would have tried to convince Jiraiya to take the boy but my student had sworn off more students of his own after his previous bad luck with them. Also Kenzo likely wouldn''t get along with him due to hisscivious nature.-

 Delay

    Dy


    (Normal POV)


    Unlike what usually happened I was not assigned to a squad within three days of graduating yet everyone else that graduated was. It was strange and confusing but when I tried to get an answer about the matter nobody could or would tell me about it. I got rather impatient as a result and directly climbed the Hokage building to ask the old man personally what the hell was going on.


    "You do understand that what you are doing is against the rules right?" the old man said with a raised eyebrow as I walked up the side of the building openly.


    "The rules also state that I should have been assigned a squad within three days of graduating and yet here I am without a squad and would like to know why that is." I said retorted bluntly.


    "Ha~ I suppose that''s fair. Your situation is rather unprecedented to be perfectly honest. Normally when a student graduates they are not truly much stronger than the others of their ss. This is because most students tend to skip grades if they are able to so their squad mates are roughly on par with them. You however are far beyond any other graduate the academy has ever produced." The old man said with a serious expression.


    "I have no idea what you mean." I said with a frown.


    The old bastard smirked at that "Oh I think you know exactly what I am talking about. You thought that by sneaking away nobody would discover your true strength but you are confusingly terrible at sneaking around, led me straight to your secret training spot. It was almost like tracking a bear to be honest. Left plenty of tracks and you weren''t gentle at all about disturbing your surroundings. It''s odd considering you also manage to regrly evade the senses of Jonins as you try to break into the archives." The old man said smirking.


    I stiffened and paled at his words though because I am VERY aware of what my training area looks like after using it to train at my full power. I also felt like cursing at my own naivety as I had always assumed that due to my nature energy cloaking i was the best at sneaking about but obviously I failed to realize until now that even if I can slip past a Jonins perception with it I still left a clear trail to follow after the fact.


    "That was left by my beasts?" I tried to y it off but the look he gave me told me that the gig was up.


    "Okay fine, yes that was mostly my doing but to be fair I thought you all might try and force me to graduate before I wanted to and then do all kinds of annoying missions way harder than I''d like." I said with an annoyed look.


    "If it was during a war or if there was one looming on the horizon that would be a valid concern. Unlike you are probably thinking I am the only person in the vige that should be aware of your true strength or rather that had an idea of what it is until now anyways." the old man said with a teasing smile.


    ''Crafty geezer! He tricked me into revealing that it was me that left the ce like that!'' I thought angrily but quickly calmed myself down.


    "So whats the deal with me not having a squad then?" I asked focusing back on what was important.


    "Oh? I had expected you to be more upset at getting exposed like this?" the old man said feigning confusion.


    "Nice try gramps but I am not going to fall for that trick twice." I said with a smirk of my own.


    He shrugged "Worth a shot. As for the matter of your squad I have decided that you simply won''t have one in the traditional manner. You will still have a sensei of course but no teammates as it would be wasteful and wrong to put a little monster like you on a team with two normal graduates. If all goes well then you will meet your sensei in at most a few more days. In the mean time perhaps rx as you wait, maybe work on your stealth?" the old man said with a chuckle at thest part.


    I huffed before leaping off the building and onto the rooftop of the one across the street in one fluid motion. A few body flickerster and I was back home and in a worse mood than when I left it previously. The beasts who were at the house at the moment and not out hunting or making a nuisance of themselves snatching food(looking at you cat) picked up on this and gathered around concerned.


    "I''m fine everyone, just a bit peeved is all." I said reassuring them as I flopped on Rens back to take a nap.


    It was bothersome that my strength had been uncovered to a degree but there was no way that my being a sage was possible to be spotted by finding my training spot. So long as that stayed hidden I wasn''t too bothered by the little bit that had been uncovereding to light. It likely would have happened eventually anyway since I was bound to run into a enemy shinobi who I needed to get a little serious against.-


    Still with me now understanding that I actually needed to wait for news I took the next week to work on my stealth like the old man suggested. Surprisingly it was a lot harder than you''d think as stealth had many different facets that one had to keep in mind. Sight, sound, scent, vibrations, chakra suppression, environmental maniption and understanding. It was a thoroughly challenging thing to grasp perfectly and a week was not enough time to do so despite me trying very hard at it.-


    Unfortunately I didn''t have longer than that as at the end of that period I got ambushed by a blonde haired woman with huge boobs. See I was working on moving without disturbing my surroundings at the time in the forest when out of nowhere my instincts warning me of danger and I flickered away immediately.


    "CRASH! RUMBLE!"


    The ground exploded when something hit it extremely hard right where I was standing previously. The sound alone was nearly deafening like the sound of a grenade going off at close proximity. My eyes were narrowed as I took the cat form of my style with my hands on the ground with my legs bent and every muscle tensed for rapid movement. The dust that obscured my vision of the attacker moved and five shuriken flew out towards me. In an act of mind boggling contortion I twisted my body out of the weapons direction until I felt some chakra move towards them and flickered away as they redirected themselves mid flight. It was obviously a skilled use of the [projectile control jutsu] that was part of the wind release D rank jutsus.

 Tsunade Senju

    Tsunade Senju


    "Looks like the old man wasn''t lying, you are definitely abnormal." a female voice said from the dust before a woman who appeared in her early thirties with long blonde hair and a strange diamond shaped tattoo on her forehead walked out.


    "Are you referring to the Hokage or someone else?" I asked cautiously without dropping my stance at all.


    "You can rx brat, if I really wanted to hurt you I doubt you could do anything to stop me. Tsunade Senju, the old man asked me to be your sensei and I wanted to make sure he wasn''t trying to trick me when he told me about you." Tsunade said bluntly and with a little annoyance.


    "Since you felt like testing me it''s only fair that I return the favor." I said before ring my chakra and shattering the ground as I kicked off in a cricket leap at full force.


    ''Cricket scorpion chimaera strike!'' I thought the moves name as my hand was covered in a super sharp chakra flow poised to pierce through the woman if she couldn''t move.


    My cricket leap was noughing matter in terms of speed as it exceeded even my body flicker as I used the entirety of my legs strength in the leap. In other words I crossed the seven or eight meter distance between us like I was teleporting. The woman surprisingly managed to react but only after my chakra flow had started to cut into her stomach past her tight grey-white kimono top and blue obi belt. In a single fluid motion she sidestepped the attack while simultaneously lifting her leg in an upward kick.


    ''Serpent escape!'' I thought as my body bent in the middle and the flew leg past by me before I myself struck a tree across the clearing.


    "BOOM!"


    The air shuddered from the force of both our attacks shed kicking up an violent windstorm in the area.


    "Not bad at all, you might be qualified to teach me after all." I said as I casually ripped my hands and feet out of the trees trunk.


    Tsunade didn''t say anything but held her hand over her stomach as it glowed green without her looking at the wound. Once she was done momentster the wound was gone and there wasn''t even a scar where I cut her.


    "Do you have any idea how expensive this outfit is?" she asked with a vein bulging on her forehead in anger.


    "Does it matter?" I asked with a confused head tilt.


    Honestly I had no idea what she was on about since unless it was shinobi gear no clothing was really that hard to buy, I was mistaken. What I came to learn after that was that my new sensei was a perpetual drunk and a habitual gambler and as a result had no money to her name until she withdrew some from her n ount. She was strong though, very strong as ording to her she had purposefully limited herself to about eighty percent of her full strength during our little spar.-


    Not because her full bodily strength was greater than mine because she confirmed that it was actually close physically speaking. No the reason she only used eighty percent was because of the skill difference. To her I had raw power in spades but my skills were downright terrible as I left a bunch of openings and had many wasted movements and lost opportunities. She had asked me to limit myself to about the average academy student my age and then proceeded to absolutely destroy my style, I was thrilled.-


    I''m not a masochist or anything who enjoys getting all their effort in doing something stomped on like it''s worthless but I had been seeking ways to improve my taijutsu style and my new sensei was giving me exactly that if a bit harshly. There was one problem with her however that I was not a fan of, she insisted that if I was going to learn from her that I had to be a medical ninja.


    "I''m not going to make that promise, it''s against my entire path!" I said angrily as she tried to force me to agree to her terms.


    The terms in question were quite simple. First I had to reach a level she deemed fit in medical jutsu before she would allow me to "graduate" from being a genin. Second I was not allowed to fight directly, at all. Third was that I wasn''t allowed to collect any more beasts if I was her student. As should be obvious I was VEHEMENTLY against the second and third set of terms. I was abat ninja and a beast master in and simple and she was all but telling me to give that up.


    "Listen here you little brat! This isn''t me asking, this is me telling you what is going to happen. I was told to be your sensei and that means that my rules go and these are my rules." The blonde said firmly.


    "Then I''m going to go have a talk with that old man to get things fixed because I refuse your terms. I don''t mind the first but the other two are uneptable." I said not giving in at all.


    "Go ahead and try! The old man will just tell you that you are out of luck!" Tsunade yelled with a scoff.


    "Then I''ll just go rogue and we will see what he says then!" I yelled angrily before flickering off towards the Hokage building.


    I wasn''t subtle at all about my approach and might even havee across hostile from my anger as I moved towards the red roofed building. When I arrived the old man had a stern expression.


    "Shouldn''t you be with Tsunade?" he asked seriously.


    "I was until sheid out the terms for me being her student. We have an unreconcble difference in paths and I am here to demand a recement." I said staring him dead in the eyes.


    "I am aware of her terms but you are in no position to demand anything." the Hokage said sternly and with a hint of warning in his voice.


    I reached over to the metal headband on my forehead and pulled it off before tossing it at him.


    "I will not ept her terms." I said absolutely seriously.


    "Does the vige mean so little to you that you''d let your petty pride ruin your future? What about your parents or Naruto?" the Hokage asked sternly.


    "I may regret how this effects them but I would regret epting those terms more. Do you even understand what they mean for me? She wants me to give up my entire path, everything that I strive for and even my life''s goal. And for what? Just to be some damned medic whose only purpose is to serve others? It''s not worth it." I said drawing the line clearly.


    The old man stared me down for a good few minutes before smiling. "I believe this is the time to rify things wouldn''t you agree?" he said and to my surprise Tsunade stepped out of the shadows of the office with an annoyed look.

 Hide and seek extreme edition

    Hide and seek extreme edition


    "Your talent was never in question brat but your character was. The old man here wanted me to teach you to the best of my ability. My problem was that I needed to see if you''d crack under pressure and this test served that purpose. It is true the first two terms I gave you are ones I have all my students swear but the third was a false one to test you. This entire time I have been using the carrot by helping point out the ws in your taijutsu and thest two terms were the stick to see if you''dpromise who you were or stand firm in your convictions."-


    "You passed the test wlessly. Without a determination like that to do whatever it took to achieve your dream I would have to worry about you dying whenever we were away from the vige which will be often. Make no mistake though no student of mine will not know medical ninjutsu, that term is non negotiable." Tsunade said seriously.


    I red at both of them "Don''t do something like this again." I said angrily before flickering away to cool my head after snatching my headband back.


    This whole test was pointless and served only to make me angry so I needed to punch something to relieve some of this anger lest it spread to the natural energy around me. That was the biggest downside to being a sage all the time, environmental corruption. If I felt any emotion for long enough the natural energy that exits my body automatically will carry it and if long enough passes it begins to change my surroundings to match. I learned this from the Uchiha massacre that had me raw and on a short fuse for nearly an entire month.-


    The yard of the house had barely recovered from the sudden onught of thorns that the nts there had gained. It was even worse for any beast that happened to be near me as they picked up on this corrupted natural energy and start to show my own emotions which as you might guess could cause problems. Birds snapping randomly and attacking, insects going out of their way to cause harm and various animals turning aggressive. This doesn''t seem unmanageable until you scale it up to every living thing within a several mile radius having this happen to them.-


    You know that phrase "It feels like the entire world is out to get me"? Yeah in my case the corrupted nature energy makes that phrase a reality and it is not a pretty sight. As it turns out having the entire world out to get you is enough of a problem to even cause Jonin issues. After I calmed down and realized the problem I had caused I had to make an effort to fix it by draining the natural energy of the area and returning it to it''s normal way of operating.-


    With that in mind I didn''t feel like figuring out what anger corrupted natural energy would cause the environment to transform into. My solution was probably childish but I simply went into the forest and punched about a dozen trees to splitters from top to bottom. Destroying stuff is quite good at removing anger and taking a nap afterwards only helped further. Logically I understood why I was tested but that didn''t mean I liked it. I spent the next four days ghosting my new sensei as a result and not even in a way that made it seem like she just missed me. -


    I straight up vanished into the forest for four whole days and thanks to my stealth training there was no finding me. Not forck of effort mind you as I watched Tsunade and her other student Shizune and pet pig Tonton look for me all over the forest since I had told my parents I was going there for a few days. It was cathartic watching the blonde kunoichi fruitlessly try and find me when in fact I was no more than mere meters away chewing on an apple. Camouge mixed with natural energy cloaking was t out broken when it came to stealth.-


    It was amusing to watch the woman stubbornly refuse to give up and admit she lost despite trying all manner of tricks to find me including seduction which was terrible. She was hot and all that with huge boobs but I wasn''t some idiot who used their dick to determine their actions, also she was horrible at seduction. Her best attempt was iming that she got hot and was going to take off her top like that would actually work somehow. I had a squirrel drop an acorn on her head for that particr attempt.-


    You should have seen her face when on the fourth day she saw me sitting on a rock at the entrance of the forest casually reading a book called {stealth for dummies}. She tried to punch me but I was faster than she was and flickered away without even looking up from my book.


    "Do you have any idea how long I have been looking for you brat!?" she asked angrily when it became clear that she wasn''t going to be able to hit me.


    I might not be able to beat her in a fight but I could definitely escape from her without issue. Hell if I summoned my hawk I could get carried into the air and she would be nearly helpless to chase me without trying to maim. Air superiority is surprisingly umon in this world apparently as far as shinobi are concerned so being able to fly or at least be in the sky is a nigh unbeatable advantage. Regardless I didn''t need the advantage to escape from her as I was so good at flickering by now that I could create three after images without much issue and five if I really pushed my perception to the limit.-


    "Twenty two hours and seven minutes split between four days as of just a moment ago." I said with a grin.


    "I knew you were watching! I bet you also threw those acorns at me didn''t you?" She demanded and I shook my head.


    "That was a squirrel actually, that one over there in fact." I said pointing at the grey squirrel sitting on a branch in position to throw another acorn.


    Tsunade looked at the squirrel and it looked back before deciding that throwing that acorn might not be the best idea. Admittedly I did tell the squirrel to throw the first acorn but the eight after that were entirely on it without anything to do with me. Reason being that squirrels were assholes and that one found it amusing how Tsunade reacted to the first acorn. It really was amusing too as the woman flipped a lid when it happened and even punched the tree it came from down. Honestly her spatial awareness was extraordinary to be able to pin point where the projectile came from after it hit her.

 Leaving Konoha

    Leaving Konoha


    In fact I was pretty sure the only reason she even got hit in the first ce was to try and catch me. Otherwise there was no reason why she would attack a tree like that since it served no real purpose.


    "Well brat you have wasted four days of my time so how are you going to pay me back?" the blonde asked with a greedy look after the squirrel scurried off.


    "I believe you are mistaken, we never discussed any ns so I wasted none of your time at all. I don''t owe you anything at all." I said casually knowing damn well that she wasn''t going to let it go.


    "You could have shown up at any point in thest four days but instead you just watched us search for you so yes you did waste our time. Now you need topensate us." the blonde insisted.


    "Nope, if anything we are now even for what you did. So what is the n anyways, besides you teaching me medical ninjutsu that is?" I asked changing the subject.


    She looked like she wanted to argue for a moment before sighing and dropping the topic since I was sort of right to feel upset at that damn test. "I will mainly focus on hammering the knowledge you will need to learn medical ninjutsu into you but if you learn fast enough I have copied some scrolls of jutsu that you will learn. Before all that however you need to learn the shadow clone jutsu as it is an indispensable jutsu for all konoha ninja." Tsunade said seriously.


    I nodded in understanding "And I assume I will be learning all of this while we are on the road?" I asked and she looked surprised.


    "How did you know?" she asked confused.


    "You''ve been antsy since I met you and regrly look towards the vige gates which means you don''t want to be here. I don''t care why since it''s got nothing to do with me but it was easy to figure out that you would want to leave as soon as possible as a result." I said honestly.


    "Read like a book by a child, I really must be getting rusty." she said with a sigh.


    After that just like I expected I was given a few hours to let everyone know I was leaving before it was time to set off. The gates of the vige which held the word hidden on them swung open with a creak and I casually followed behind Tsunade and Shizune as we walked along the earthen path. It felt strange leaving the vige like this as despite having technically left it for the nearby forest many times this was truly the first time I was actually leaving. I wasn''t concerned though as this was just another oppurtunity as far as I was concerned. I quickly came to regret that thought process once we got far enough from the vige.-


    Thend of fire was ironically enough a highly fertile and forested ce so the road we took as we walked was surrounded by trees and wildlife. What it also had was bandits aplenty.


    "Kill the brat and we''ll have ourselves a good time with the women." A group of frankly stupid bandits in makeshift or ratty armor with terrible quality weapons walked out of the trees with vicious and lustful expressions.


    "You take care of these before catching up to us." Tsunade said casually before she and Shizune flickered away down the path.


    "Oi the women are getting away stop them!" a brutish man yelled and I could only assume this was the leader.


    I could feel my temper rising from being so easily dismissed by these scum bags and decided to fix that. Flickering towards the nearest bandit I appeared in front of the man and with no real issue tore his head off with my scorpion pincer chakra flow. The body didn''t even hit the ground before the next three bandits were killed the same way. Thest three bandits finally noticed that they fucked up by not taking me seriously but honestly I doubted that it would have made any difference as anyone in my previous ss could have handled these thugs.-


    "Now to catch up with those two." I muttered after killing thest bandit without getting even a drop of blood on me.


    "That certainly didn''t take you very long, have you killed bandits before?" Shizune asked surprised when I showed up.


    I shook my head "Not in a real scenario like this but the academy did capture some bandits for us to get past the initial bloodletting trauma. Those bandits back there didn''t even have chakra so killing them was an easy affair." I exined honestly.


    "A sad reality that we subject young children to such a thing but unfortunately it is necessary." Tsunade said with a mncholic expression.


    I didn''t add anything to that since she wasn''t wrong. That was simply how this world was for shinobi and there was little to be done about it. There was a time when the vige didn''t have the academy students undergo a desensitization to murder but those same students had the highest casualty rate during missions so that w was fixed. We were literally taught to fight and kill our opponents at this point alongside the other topics we were supposed to know.-


    After a few hours we reached a small town and booked a room at the inn while getting some strange looks. There was two beds and three people after all and we weren''t all the same gender. We did this at my suggestion since I didn''t need a bed since I could just sleep on Ren instead. My new sensei was more than happy to save the money an extra room would cost but warned me there would be serious consequences if I tried any funny business.-


    Jokes on her though as I summoned Ren and went straight to bed after dinner without even sparing her or Shizune a nce. Women are vain creatures though and don''t take it well when you show ack of interest. Shizune didn''t seem to mind but Tsunade was not in a good mood in the morning.


    "POOF!"


    A cloud of smoke appeared as she retrieved a huge pile of books, scrolls and ledgers from a storage scroll she had in the morning. She then showed me how to use the shadow clone jutsu before telling me to memorize every word in that pile and that she''d test me in a week.-


    "A weeks kinda short isn''t it?" I asked in disbelief.


    "I don''t expect you to memorize it all in that amount of time but at least a quarter of it is entirely possible if you are as much of a genius as you appear." she said with a smug grin.


    ''So petty!'' I thought annoyed before created a shadow clone followed by another and another until the room was full of me''s.


    Shizune looked like she wanted to say something when she saw this but Tsunade gave her a look that stopped her.

 Headache and trauma

    Headache and trauma


    The two women left after that as I and my army of me''s got to work memorizing the information in the pile on the floor. The stuff was surprisingly in depth for a world that seemed so primitive in so many regards. In nearly all regards this world was downright feudal as far as tech went but at the same time was also so advanced scientifically that you could make legitimate clones, create poisons that attacked gics or even understand the ins and outs of the human body even with chakra taken into ount.-


    At the same time however electricity and light bulbs weren''t really a thing in pretty much any house. The tech of this world was wildly disproportionate and I had no bloody idea why that was. You might think it was because of chakra but you''d be wrong since biological science which should have needed electrical science to advance did so without it like someone simply skipped a few hundred steps to reach that highly advanced stuff. Even this information I was memorizing was the sort of stuff you wouldn''t think most doctors on earth to know yet was the basics here.-


    To be fair though I understood why I needed to know this stuff as unlike doctors back on earth where treatment was basically boiled down to surgery and medication here we had chakra. It truly made all the difference as rather than needing to spend weeks, months or years to recover from a grave illness like cancer a skilled medical nin could have a patient with it up and about dayster with but a few minutes of treatment. On earth a single medical nin of decent skill would practically be worshipped as a literal miracle worker.-


    This was just for medical nin of regr skill but if you were to put someone like my sensei on earth they would practically be considered a god as life and death were ythings for them. The funny part was that nobody bats an eye at this fact here as while she was extremely well respected my sensei was not the object of worship she would be on earth, she was just a very good doctor to everyone here. Don''t even get me started on the sort of effect a Jonin who specialized in ninjutsu would bring on earth.-


    Anyways thanks to my couple dozen shadow clones I memorized the whole pile of information by the end of the day in exchange for the worst headache ever. My head was pounding and I felt almost like I had a nasty hangover which my sensei viciously capitalized on by being loud and bothersome. It didn''t help that she was drunk off her ass and being taken care of by Shizune. My fellow student apparently wanted to warn me about the bacsh of having so many shadow clones but I told her I already knew about it. Which was true since I nned on learning the jutsu eventually anyways.-


    See shadow clones are different than normal chakra based clones in that each clone has all your thoughts and memories at the moment of it''s creation but can still learn new things separate from yourself. The problem however was that when they are dismissed or destroyed you get all those new memories in an instant. This meant that if you have too many clones at once or even a single clone active for long enough to gain a significant amount of new memories when they are dismissed you get overloaded with all this new information.-


    "But if you knew this would happen why did you do it?" Shizune asked confused.


    "Because she mocked me and said it would take me a week. She hates losing right? Well I win this time." I said honestly while rubbing my temple.


    She just stared at me speechless at that before having to go back to treating Tsunade''s drunkenness. The blonde was her own biggest obstacle as despite making money as a medical nin traveling ce to ce she had a taste for alcohol and gambling that left her perpetually in debt. The funny part was that nobody ever bothered trying to get her to pay up in alternative ways because the people who did tended to require her help surviving after she was done with them.-


    Yes the whole porn scenario with men trying to get in her pants because of her debt did happen and unlike in porn the only people getting fucked in that situation was the men as she beat them within an inch of their lives before fixing them and doing it again. Tsunade Senju was many things but loose was not one of them. Don''t get me wrong she definite utilizes her looks to her advantage but she won''t ever actually let anyone touch her like that.-


    As for killing her because of her debt? Only the REALLY stupid folk tried that as she had the backing of Konoha, the hokage, literally all the influential people she''s healed over the years across the elemental nations AND she was as strong as an S rank ninja to boot. Trying to kill her was like dering open season on your ass to the whole world and just not a smart idea. That said I did discover one thing over the next week when she taught me off and on after she sobered up and realized I had proven her wrong, she was broken.-


    I don''t mean physically but rather mentally. There was a case when a man was attacked by a wolf pack in the forest while foraging and she REEKED of terror at the sight of him. Her scent was filled with it and she shook and hyperventted the moment she saw the man. That was a dead give away of trauma ording to the very same books she had me memorize. Shizune helped the man while I distracted my sensei from her past.


    "You must think me pathetic after this huh?" she asked self depreciatingly as we sat outside the building on the ground.


    "Not particrly no." I said honestly surprising her.


    "Why not?" she asked confused.


    "I might be young and inexperiencedpared to you but I have felt loss before. I am not referring to my biological parents either but the death of the entire Uchiha n. I never told anyone else but I felt that night as if I was right in the middle of it, each life getting suddenly ended one by one, all of it. Can you imagine how messed up that feels? The guttural reaction that it brings to feel that void show up? I was shattered by it." I said honestly and quietly.


    "But the seals?" she asked astonished.


    "My sensor abilities work differently than the normal sort and as a result aren''t blocked by those seals even a little. That night changed me, perhaps not drastically but I developed a fear of weakness after that. The inability to do anything at all to stop something like that from happening again is what terrifies me. You being afraid of something you experienced in the past is no different so long as you don''t allow that fear to control you like I don''t allow my own fear to. It''s a part of me that I will never be rid of but there is no reason why I should fixate on it rather than use it as fuel for improvement." I said firmly.

 Learning

    Learning


    "Why tell me all this?" She asked confused and concerned.


    "Because you seem like you need to hear it and because I don''t think you will tell anyone unless it''s a matter of life and death. I don''t know what you experienced or when but I do know that what ever it is is chaining you down. The sad part is that only you are holding those chains and can let go of them to free yourself, give it a thought or two." I said before leaving to find some food.


    It was easy enough to get some spending money while out here as unlike my sensei I was a monster when it came to gambling. My senses were extremely sharp so I could read my opponents like a book with how they move, smell, and breath giving me clues as to whether they are bluffing or have genuinely good odds. I still lost sometimes when going for a draw isn''t possible and my own odds weren''t the best but otherwise I won fairly consistently. I had to keep my money away from my sensei though as she would try to use it to get booze or gamble more.-


    After our little talk I took some of my money to a small restaurant and got some barbecued noodles that were full of vor and fairly cheap too. It was a little irritating that the waiter was a ninja and tried to dose my food with sleeping powder but jokes on them as I was pretty much immune to stuff like that. That didn''t mean I didn''t feed them to Akasha though as I wasn''t just going to ignore the attempt. No one knew it was me either as I simple followed the ninja while under stealth until they were alone before killing them with an ambush.-


    I disposed of the body by feeding it to Akasha and then heading back to the town to practice my nature transformation for the rest of the day. I still hadn''t figured out how to imitate some of my beasts abilities but the ones that had an ability based off the five basic chakra natures such as my hawk and Kiba I could more or less copy at this point. The wind des of my hawk were pretty good as far as distanced attacks went and my sensei said they could count as high C rank jutsu.-


    The lightning cloak of Kiba however was damn near impossible to use as while it functioned nearly identically to the Raikages lightning cloak jutsu in that it provided increased speed, reaction times, offensive capability and defensive capability it also shocked the ever loving hell out of me when I used it. I''m talking full blown high voltage full body taser kinda shocking which made my muscles spaz out and left me in agony. ording to my sensei it was because my body unlike Kibas wasn''t built to use the jutsu.


    Unlike the Raikage who clearly had a more intense version of the same thing also had a way to protect themselves from the jutsu as well which I didn''t have. That didn''t mean that the ability was worthless however as ording to my sensei nobody had ever gotten that close to imitating the Raikages jutsu and if I gave the information to the vige could earn a lot of mission points that I could exchange for jutsu from the archive. I didn''t n to do that however as I was certain that the Kumogakure spies in the vige would catch wind of it and the vige hidden in the clouds would put a bounty on my head in revenge.-


    I was fine with having a bounty when I was stronger and capable of fending off any attacks but for now I was now nearly experienced or skilled enough for that. Don''t get me wrong I am well aware that killing me was pretty difficult simply due to my physical abilities and speed but there was no real chance of me winning any fight I got in with anyone experienced and not caught off guard or careless.-


    Case in point when my sensei had me spar with Shizune who despite having a gentle demeanor absolutely manhandled me without breaking a sweat. Though she didin that my body was unreasonably sturdy after punching me. For future reference I would like to officially state that Shizune was not weak at all. Unlike my sensei who seemed to rely on her monstrous strength to fight Shizune used high force paired with extremely precise attacks to devastating effect. She broke no less than seven of my bones during our spar as a result and then to my humiliation repaired them right afterwards. I was forced to eat humble pie and let me tell you that''s some bitter stuff.-


    We spent the next month traveling thend of hot springs after my chat with my sensei and it was so damn boring! I didn''t find any chakra beasts despite looking and even had to spend the vast majority of my time learning medical jutsu. At first it was a simple matter of chakra control being used to separate more and moreplexly mixed substances then we moved on to me having to revive a fish that had been sealed in a way to allow the brain to stay alive even after the body died.-


    That particr test was rather frustrating as my sensei didn''t actually tell me that what I was training was actually yin and yang chakra transformation until I figured it out on my own. Medical jutsu as it turned out was a mix of the two in most cases or legitimate yin yang release jutsus which weren''t as simple as it sounds. See chakra by itself was a perfect blend of yin and yang but to get a true yin yang release jutsu you needed to separate chakra to those two baseponents before mixing them again without turning them back to chakra.-


    It was some confusing stuff but my sensei smacked me for thinking about it since I wasn''t even past the basics of medical jutsu yet. Speaking of basics I learnt the mystic palm jutsu and chakra scalpel jutsus within this month. Not mastered them mind you since they were a whole lot moreplicated then you might originally think. The mystic palm jutsu for example had sub forms depending on what you wanted to achieve. Ones for small cuts, one forrge cuts, bruises, frostbite and a bunch of other types of bodily damage types. Chakra scalpel was practically second nature to me though as it was basically just chakra flow with extra effects.-


    My sensei hit me when I said that despite agreeing with the statement. As an added bonus she had been trying to ovee her fear of blood slowly by desensitizing herself to small amounts of it. When I say small I do mean it too as anything more than a knick with barely a drop of the red stuff and she freaks out. Not to say she''s calm with that amount either just that she at least TRIES to remain calm with it.

 It’s talent not cheating

    It¡¯s talent not cheating


    Currently we were traveling through thend of hot springs which contrary to it''s name wasn''t in fact covered in hotsprings. In fact it was just a mix of valleys and mountains that had forests, ins and of course hotsprings. We were on the way to thend of herbs apparently as I had reached the part of my training where I needed to learn medicine concoction. I still hadn''t mastered mystic palm jutsu yet as I was making sure that I mastered each possible variant before I imed that honor. Ironically my sensei told me that she did the exact same thing when she was learning medical ninjutsu originally.-


    "I get that an iryonin(medical ninja) needs to know their way around medicine but I''m confused why I need to learn how to make it. Isn''t that the job of alchemists?" I asked as we traveled the rocky road.


    "While that is true, I believe that an iryonin should be able to find and use local ingredients since there is almost never an alchemist nearby when on a mission." Tsunade said seriously.


    "I suppose that is a pretty good reason. That reminds me but why are alchemists so rare anyways? Considering how much medicine is needed I''d assume they would be a very popr profession yet I only saw like four in the vige." I said honestly confused.


    Herb shops were all over the ce in the vige but actual medicine ces were strangelycking. It was odd since this worlds people needed way more medicine than people on earth did. Shinobi in particr got cuts , scrapes, stabs, poisoned and diseased from going on foreign missions literally all the time. With this in mind medicines for fever, rash, bleeding and poisoning were rarely in stock for very long and yet alchemist capable of making those things were a rarity.-


    She sighed "It''s the same reason iryonin are outnumbered in the vige a hundred to one, high learning requirements. Medicine concoction is not as simple as mixing herbs and applying the result. For starters someone learning to be an alchemist must first learn herbology and nt husbandry in exacting detail. Wild lettuce for example looks nearly identical to sow thistle but if you eat both you will have VERY different reactions. There are a near endless amount of nts that look the same but will aplish different things."


    "Then an alchemist must be able to tell crossbreeds apart or mutants of the same species of nt. I once came across a mutant ginseng nt that wasn''t medicinal but extremely toxin instead but appeared nearly identical to it''s normal variant. On top of all this an alchemist needs to know how to crossbreed herbs to get a stronger effect from the offspring nt since most ntsck potent healing abilities on their own. With the sheer variety of nts both known and unknown in this world it takes a lot of talent or time to meet the minimum requirement to learn actual medicine crafting." she exined seriously.


    "I sorta cheated huh?" I asked sheepishly at that since I had spammed shadow clones to memorize all this theoretical information in no time at all.


    "Shizune assuming you were a newbie like Kenzo here and tried to use his method of learning what percentage do you think you''d be able to memorize sessfully?" Tsunade asked and my fellow student paused in thought.


    "About five mydy." The ck haired woman said seriously.


    "Still think you cheated?" Tsunade asked me and I shook my head. "Shadow clones can indeed increase ones learning speed considerably but the method has a fatal w, memory. Unless you reinforce the knowledge your clones learned it will fade away and in the end you''ll only retain a small portion of that total amount. Your brain is different however as it is naturally designed to take in a muchrger portion of this information thus wasting far less time and effort to memorize a vast amount like you have. You are practically made for learning at an outrageous rate." She added and after thinking about it I had to agree.-


    No matter what it was I tried to learn it always took me far less time to pick it up than anyone else I had topare with. Shuriken throwing? A week and I had perfect scores. Handsigns? A month to learn all the basic ones and use them fluidly. Byparison even the fastest learner in my ss besides me, Sasuke took almost two years to begin approaching my level with shuriken''s and hand signs. When it came to theoretical knowledge I was even faster as I studied every piece of information about history and the world I could get my hands on.-


    If it was avable in the public library I knew it and even then I knew even more as I also had private information from people who lived those events. It was one thing to read about how a battle between two individuals reshaped thendscape but another entirely to speak with someone who witnessed it firsthand. Records try but usually fail when ites to emphasis on how impactful things were but people don''t have that issue. Old folks that were alive during those times were surprisingly forting about the past if you bothered to ask them I had found while in the vige.-


    The trick however was finding those old people as unfortunately very few shinobi lived long enough to be counted. Others like the third Hokage had no problem talking about fun or interesting personal events but got tight lipped when serious events were inquired about. For example when I had asked the Hokage about details of the first and second Hokages abilities only for the old man to immediately shut me down. It made no sense to me since unless it was pertaining to a forbidden jutsu or something talking about those two long dead people shouldn''t make any difference.-


    Admittedly my memorization of the public library helped considerably when using shadow clones to learn these days. Without that prior information i likely wouldn''t be able to understand many references or words in the new stuff. In a way I suppose that it could be likened to creating a dictionary in my head that let me trante the new information much faster. The broader that dictionary got with the new words added to it the faster I learned. That was where the shadow clone jutsu came in as my clone absorbed and digested the information before sending it to me where my brain immediately went to work sorting it based on topic and understanding.-


    I can''t say that my sensei was a terrible teacher but it was clear that she was less hands on then you would expect. Her teaching style so far had basically been to have me memorize information and practice a few things she taught me before leaving me to my own devices. Then again I was still basically a novice at medical jutsu still so that might be the case for all medical ninja at my level.

 Medical training

    Medical training


    There was one slight change however in that my sensei now had me working alongside her and Shizune healing minor problems like bruising or scrapes. I have to admit that medical treatment even at this level is a lot harder than I realized. If I didn''t control my chakra precisely I could go from helping to straight up destroying the part I was working on. I even turned a few peoples flesh cancerous on ident when Ipsed in concentration for a split second. It was fixed by my sensei or Shizune but that didn''t mean I didn''t get in trouble for it.-


    "An Iryonin must remain focused and alert at all times Kenzo and since that is clearly a weak point for you I have devised a training method to fix this issue." Tsunade said as she attached metal bands to my hands, feet and my neck.


    Each band was in iron rings with the exception of them being covered in Fuinjutsu seals. Next she ced a ball of fuinjutsu covered iron in my hands and under my feet.


    "Those bands and balls are connected and the balls demand an ever changing and constant flow of mystic palm chakra. If your concentrationpses for even a brief moment when the signature of the balls changes you will get a rather unpleasant shock by those bands. I have calibrated the output thest yourrge chakra reserves for exactly three hours. This training will be over when you can go that full length of time without getting shocked." she added and I nodded thinking it straight forward enough, I was wrong.


    What she had failed to tell me was that the training didn''t reset when I got shocked but continued like nothing happened despite me having to deal with that pain because the bands were in highly sensitive locations. This meant the first few times I got shocked were in dreadful as I stopped using mystic palm on the orbs and the shock never stopped until I resumed and if I took too long the pain got even worse. It was pretty damned obvious what the hidden lesson here was "A medical ninja must even ignore pain when treating a patient". A likely true enough statement on a battlefield or after a battle when I would be injured yet need to heal someone else.-


    Knowing that however didn''t make the next few weeks any easier on me as for three hours everyday I had to go through this training and then to top it off after that I still needed to spar or heal some people before I was done for the day. Needless to say I was drained most of this time by the end of the day but by the end of it I overcame my short attention span and got to the next troublesome matter, medicinal concoction.


    "The mes are too hot for those nts!" "The medicine calls for finely ground monkshood and this course ground stuff!"


    There was a lot of harsh criticisms like that when we finally reached thend of herbs and my sensei got ess to a plentiful and cheap variety of nts to teach me with. Thanks to her reputation as the best healer in the world known far and wide people flocked to the ces we visited and brought rare and valuable ingredients as payment for treatment. Unfortunately my role as her student had been exposed as well and I had to deal with these asskissers trying to cozy up to me since I was clearly learning medical jutsu from my sensei.-


    Unless I died along the way I was clearly on track to be a highly skilled Iryonin and that meant everyone wanted me in their pocket. The weird thing though was that some of those who came for treatment belonged to other hidden shinobi viges. My sensei''s policy was very simple and kinda controversial as well.


    "I will treat anyone who minds their manners and can pay for it." she had said proudly when I asked.


    Hidden cloud, Hidden stone, Hidden mist, rogue shinobi, it made no difference at all to my sensei and Shizune as they treated everyone that followed her simple rules. One of the craziest patients we had was one of the seven swordsmen of the mist, Zabuza Momochi. He was a stern man who kept his face wrapped in bandages and he never got far from the outrageouslyrge weapon he carried. He had a boy with him who was not much older than me and was fairly nice if a bit overly curious. They hade in because Zabuza had apparently gotten inflicted with a poison that was hard to get rid of in a recent fight and needed a skilled healers help.-


    The man was dangerous without a single doubt as even while he was totally calm receiving treatment all my instincts were warning me to keep my distance. Once his treatment was over he paid before leaving without so much as a word after exining the situation initially. I was d to see him go as it took a whole lot of effort to stop myself from sending an attack his way to get rid of him. I had nothing against the guy personally but when I was getting constant danger signals it was hard not to want to make them stop with extreme prejudice.-


    I learned something interesting in my free time though, shadow clone jutsu was ipatible with sage chakra. I don''t mean that the jutsu didn''t ept the stuff but rather it didn''t do anything if I added it. The resulting clones were no different from my normal ones as all that changed was that this time the clone didn''t need to gather natural energy on it''s own first before using a sage art. I couldn''t figure out why this was at first but after a while I understood.-


    Shadow clone jutsu worked by splitting ones chakra amongst the clones in order to make the clones have their own thoughts and ability to execute jutsu independently of the original. The trick was that the clones were EXACT replicas of the original with the exception that taking a hit would cause them to disappear. With me being in sage mode all the time my clones naturally were also in sage mode when I created them and as a result got nothing from me adding extra sage chakra to their creation. It kinda sucked but there was nothing for it given the uniqueness of my situation.


    There was a REALLY close call during one of the treatments on a ninja from the hidden stone who had been hunting a rogue from their vige. See the damage was so bad that my sensei felt the need to summon her contracted animal summon and I had to make myself scarce immediately. The damn slug was a sage and I felt it the moment it showed up which had me stilling all intake of natural energy while getting as far as possible away. The thing didn''t seem to notice the traces of my sage self in the air but focused on the patient thankfully.

 Chat

    Chat


    "Where''d you disappear off to? I was going to introduce you to Katsuyu after she finished with the patient but you were nowhere to be found?" Tsunade asked curiously.


    "I thought I sensed a chakra beast and wanted to check it out before it vanished." I lied without any hesitation.


    "Hmm, well next time at least give Shizune or me a heads up before you go off on your own." she said easily believing what I said since it fit me perfectly.


    Thankfully she didn''t insist on forcing an introduction between me and the slug sage or things would have gotten veryplicated. I was improving by leaps and bounds under my sensei in chakra control, taijutsu, iryonin jutsu and even reputation. That said though I still didn''t feelfortable revealing that I was a sage at this point. Funnily enough my regr ninjutsu skills were still abysmal since my sensei didn''t have many jutsu outside of the medical field memorized.


    Not to say I didn''t learn a few new ones like multishadow clone jutsu, mudslide jutsu, rampart jutsu and Iron skin jutsu. Multishadow clone jutsu allowed me to summon more than one shadow clone at a time rather than needing to summon multiple one at a time. It was basically the exact same as the normal jutsu but with an extra step. Mudslide jutsu was an earth release jutsu that allowed the user the turn their chakra into a huge volume of mud that they could spit out of their mouths like it was a water style jutsu. Rampart jutsu created a thick wall of stone that was purely defensive in nature and quite good at it too. The iron skin jutsu was an earth release that basically just hardened ones skin and made them resistant to elemental damage in exchange for speed.-


    To be honest iron skin jutsu was damn near useless for me due to how stupidly durable my body already was and the trade off of speed was the final decider on me mastering the jutsu and then promptly filing it under "never to see the light of day again" in my list of known jutsu. Adding sage chakra to the jutsu only made the effects that much more potent with the trade off being even worse as I was rendered nigh stone still, it simply wasn''t worth keeping.-


    The other two jutsu though were wonderful things when supplied sage chakra as one created a huge swamp of deep mud and the other creates a massive stone wall that I was willing to bet could tank an A rank jutsu. My sensei knew a few water release jutsu as well but refused to teach them to me since she was going off of my recorded affinities. There was nothing for it unfortunately as I couldn''t exactly tell her that I actually had all the natures without revealing why that is. This left me with no choice but to wait and learn whatever she taught me.-


    Once I finally mastered mystic palm jutsu I began to improve by leaps and bounds with the rest of the iryonin jutsu as that was the foundation for pretty much everything else. The difficulty of what I was allowed to treat also got more and more severe as we moved to arger city to have ess to the hospital there. I moved from bruises and cuts to gouges and broken bones in about two months. I also got really good at treating poison as ninjas came in with various types in their system that gave me a whole lot of practice.


    "Thank you young man." an old woman said with a smile as I treated the wounds a feral cat gave her that had gotten infected.


    "It''s fine ma''am I am just doing my job." I said without looking away from my work as a bright green glow came from my hands.


    "There, all done." I said as I finished up and the woman didn''t even have any scars to show for it.


    "Are you sure you wouldn''t like to meet my granddaughter? She really is a lovely girl." the old woman asked for what had to be the fifth time this treatment.


    "I''m ttered ma''am but I really am not interested in any sort of rtionship at this time." I said calmly.


    My sensei had made it abundantly clear that the only time I was allowed to get snappy or angry with a patient was if they crossed a line or would be stopping me from moving on to another patient. I REALLY wanted to get angry though as this wasn''t the first time someone tried to y matchmaker with me, not even fucking close. I lost count somewhere around a hundred and twelve. -


    "Ah~ I remember when I used to have patients try that with me. Shizune still has suitors lining up for a chance to marry her. I scared off most of mine long ago." Tsunade said with a teasing smirk from a chair nearby.


    "I would prefer if they would stop trying but clearly that won''t be happening anytime soon." I said irritated.


    "You''ll never get a girlfriend with that attitude." she teased and I scoffed.


    "I don''t need one, you women aren''t worth the trouble." I said honestly.


    "Sounds like someone''s had a bad experience or two." she mocked and I shook my head.


    "Not at all, I merely understand my reality. Romance has no ce in my life and thus I don''t want it." I said honestly and she frowned.


    "I know some who once said something very simr, he went on to be one of the worst people to ever live." she said seriously.


    "Unlike that snake I am not delusional. I also have reliablepanions and a future that doesn''t require me to give up my humanity." I sent back not appreciating theparison to Orochimaru.


    The man might have left the vige long before my time but that didn''t mean I didn''t know the sort of sick and twisted individual he was. Even with most of what he did redacted i still found hundreds of things that he had done to further his goals without care for who he hurt in the process. Human experimentation, animal experimentation, forbidden jutsu research, kidnaping, drug peddling and many more.


    "Why does it sound like you have a personal hatred for the man despite never having met him?" she asked with an interested look.


    "He was a child prodigy, he impressed everyone he met and created grand feats of science that pushed the shinobi world forward by decades. And despite all of this he threw away everything for the fear of death. I hate the man because what he is is what I could be with the right push. I know for a fact you can see the resemnce between me and him, don''t try and deny it." I said bitterly but honestly.

 Princess view

    Princess view


    (POV Tsunade)


    When my sensei summoned me back to the vige I feared the worst at first like a new war was fast approaching.Shizune and I rushed back as fast as we could but when we got to the vige everything was perfectly fine. I remember thest two wars so I was confused to see that there was none of the signs of a waring, no prepping shinobi, no anbu watching the gate, nothing.


    "Why did you summon us back if theres no waring?" I asked my sensei confused after arriving at his office.


    The old man with stress wrinkles and loose skin sitting behind the desk didn''t say a word but took out a folder from a drawer and pushed it towards me. It was clear he wanted me to read it but I couldn''t imagine why any report would have anything to do with myself. I picked up the report and began to read through it and my eyes widened more and more the further I read and not for a good reason either. The file was simply about a single child who just graduated from the academy.-


    Psychological, medical, chakra, skill and more types of evaluations were all listed in detail describing this child. At first nce one might think that Kenzo was merely a once in a millennia genius from the reports but to me they were ufortably simr to my old team mate Orochimaru''s file at the same age. You could practically hold the two side by side and have trouble telling them apart beyond a few small details.


    "Is all of this correct?" I asked seriously.


    My sensei nodded "It is though there is a few details that are left out since we can not verify them for reasons exined in the file." he said honestly.


    "Combat rating right?" I asked.


    "Yes the boy is highly secretive with his training and disys of power. There are signs that he is much more powerful than what he has shown but there is no way to verify it as he hides his strength anytime someone tries to observe him. I have no idea why though, he has not gotten burned for showing his power nor does he have any enemies, quite the opposite in fact as he is practically idolized by his teachers and ssmates." he said seriously.


    "How is that possible with his behavior listed here?" I asked confused.


    "It''s because despite his behavior he doesn''t create problems on his own, he is reactive. In all circumstances where there was an issue he was never the one to cause it but simply acted to resolve it in his own way even if that way was disproportionate to the situation. Thanks to this all the people around him find him quiet but agreeable." he said with a sigh.


    "At least he''s different in that regard at least, Orochimaru was always rather abrasive towards the rest of us in our ss." I said with a pang of sadness when thinking of my old teammate.


    "Indeed and that is why I want you to take him on as a student. I can admit that I failed you three as a teacher. I was so eager to make you powerful that I neglected your growth as people and in the end the vige paid the price for my folly. I don''t want Kenzo to follow in Orochimaru''s footsteps and only you and Jiraiya could show the boy the way forward properly." he said and I immediately wanted to reject him.


    I had veryplicated feelings about the vige after my experiences in thest two wars and tried hard to stay away from it. Taking a new student would draw me back instead and I violently wanted to resist. But, at the same time I knew what my sensei said was true as only us three were truly familiar with what led to the birth of the monster that Orochimaru became. Without our guidance it truly would be oh so easy for this child to follow the same or at least a simr path.-


    "IF and that''s a big if. IF I do this I have some demands that aren''t up for negotiation." I said firmly after thinking it over for a few moments.


    "If they are not too extreme I may ept them." he said with a tired sigh.


    "First we won''t be in the vige for the vast majority of the time. Second we will put the boy through a test of character before I agree to be his teacher and if I don''t like what I find I won''t do it. Third he will be learning Iryonin jutsu no matter what as a priority overbat. Finally I alone decide when or if I will give you a progress report." I said firmly as I stared the old man down.


    He frowned "I don''t like the first or thest but I can ept all of these demands. Now about this test of yours." he said and we began to discuss the matter and argued a bit at some points but came to a solid n of action.


    The test was a simple carrot and stick treatment with me honestly teaching the boy for a few days before setting forth terms that we knew he was going to react poorly to. The goal here was to see if his reaction is the same as what Orochimaru would have done in a simr circumstance. Surprisingly enough it was actually more in line with how Jiraiya would have reacted, hotheaded and ill thought out. Orochimaru might have been furious in that situation but he would have remained silent and bid his time until he could destroy whatever was restricting him. -


    What followed after that though was in spiteful however as after the boy stormed off in righteous anger he vanished into the nearby forest and evaded me for four whole days. There was a couple times I believed that I found him during that time but there was nothing in the spots I looked. Taunting or trickery also failed to break the boy out of his stealth which I have to admit was ufortably effective. I might not seem like it but I was ALWAYS aware of my surroundings and not even a member of the anbu could hide from me yet the boy evaded me for four entire days. In the end I only found the boy because he allowed it and I was relieved to find he had a sense of humor as he was casually holding a child oriented book on stealth.-


    I spent the next few weeks acting normally while carefully watching the boys behavior and other than being introverted and ufortably calm about murder for a fresh graduate he was pretty normal. His talent though was mind blowing as I taunted him a few times with demands I knew were unreasonable only to turn around and find that hepleted them well beyond any expectation of mine. It was incredible just how fast he picked up a new concept or piece of information and put it into practice.

 Princess view(2)

    Princess view(2)


    (POV Tsunade)


    It was unnatural in fact as I had done a deep scan of his body when I got a chance and his entire form was perfect. I don''t mean like he was just healthy but that there was not a single cell or organ in his body not operating with absolute efficiency. Brain was perfectly shaped to learn and retain massive amounts of information in a short frame of time. I had only seen a brain like this in members of the Hyuga and Uchiha ns whose dojutsu causes sensory overload without this sort of shape.-


    The rest of his body was no different as his skin, muscles and bones are denser than normal by a lot and even his blood is the universal O negative and absolutely PACKED with vitality. My n was the only people i have ever seen with vitality like this which allowed us to heal faster and live longer than normal shinobi but only my grandfathers vitality was anywhere close to this extreme. Oddly though Kenzo''s hyper dense body was perfectly bnced with this vitality so that he only healed about as fast as an above average member of my n.-


    If his body didn''t need so much vitality to heal at that speed I am willing to bet he''d be practically unkible. Stabbed through the heart? Healed a split secondter. Decapitated? It''d take hours for his body to stop functioning properly and even longer for his brain to die. Not that I think anyone was capable of inflicting fatal wounds on him to begin with if he chose to run away as his speed was so fast that it reminded me of the Raikages. His physical strength was also not far from his speed as he matched me of all people.-


    My body was strengthened to an extreme degree using a special seal I created called the strength of a hundred that makes my physical strength inhuman. The slightest exertion from me could break bones and my full power could create craters and an eleven year old matched that without any special technique. Even more terrifying was that I noticed that his strength was growing as his body did. I was worried that by the time he turned fifteen his raw force would be enough to wipeout squadrons of Jonin soldiers from the air pressure alone.-


    The only normal thing about the boy was that he was inexperienced and needed guidance to learn something. I had even seen him show a w in the form of his short attention span. Well that probably isn''t entirely urate as it wasn''t that he had a short attention span so much as his senses were so sharp that even the slightest sound or light caused his mind to immediately focus on it. It was almost like paranoia was built into the very essence of his being as he did it purely on instinct so much so that I almost thought he truly had a short attention span.-


    I helped him train out this instinctual habit of his since it was the only thing stopping him from excelling at Iryonin jutsu. He did open up to me after discovering my fear of blood and told me something that was listed in his file but horribly incorrect, he is a sensor but not the normal sort. His form of the ability was unaffected by the seals designed to keep out the normal sensors and as a result he had to experience the death of an entire n.-


    That knowledge alone made me worried about his metal state as the way he described it was much like those sensory nin posted on the battlefield during a fierce battle and none of them were alright after experiencing that. There was something about feeling dozens of lives getting snuffed out in an instant that left the sensors broken or at the very least shook to a great degree. Hearing a child no more than seven or eight went through such an experience and didn''t receive help for it made me concerned. Unlike myself though Kenzo didn''t let his trauma drag him down.-


    He harnessed it to motivate himself to learn and push himself forward and admittedly his drive and conviction infected me a little. I had began trying to break the hold my fear held over me and it was hard but the boy was supportive and helpful in his own way. It was small things really, he''d bring food or make a stupid joke to distract me if I started to feel overwhelmed. the sort of stuff no one would normally notice but I picked up on easily due to experience dealing with Jiraiya who did the same thing constantly.-


    It was the same reason why I knew he lied to me about when I asked him where he vanished to after I summoned Katsuyu. Just like Jiraiya the boy had the same tells in that he tried to distract with smiles,ughter or body movement when he lied. If I didn''t know Jiraiya like I did I would have never noticed it myself as he was that good at deception. Another thing that didn''t add up was that the one thing Kenzo was obsessed with is beasts with the stronger the better yet he fled away from Katsuyu like she was the bane of his existence.-


    Perhaps he sensed something from her that made him ufortable but in that case I simply had no clue what it could be. Katsuyu held a special ce in the animal kingdom after all as she was both many and one, weak and powerful,plex and simple. Kenzo was more in tune with the way of beasts than anyone I had ever known so there was no telling what he discovered from her and I wasn''t going to ask. Everyone had their secrets and if he felt like keeping this one all asking would aplish would be to make him m up.-


    I moved on from that event without much fuss and oversaw his taijutsu and iryonin jutsu training since he had alreadypletely mastered the alchemical knowledge I could teach him. It was all supplementary knowledge and theories with some techniques for crafting medicine so it was no surprise he picked it up easily. I forbade Shizune from telling him just how fast he was growing as a medical shinobi but I can say with certainty that his skills rivaled a special jonin level Iryonin at worse and surpassed them in some aspects at best. -


    His mystic palm was monstrously powerful and could heal a broken bone in no more than five minutes. Such a feat of healing rivaled my own and for good reason as it takes an extreme amount of precision andrge quantity and quality of chakra. It was on his record that he possesses a vast reservoir of chakra but to witness it in person is a very different thing than reading about it. The insane part was that I had met Jinchuriki with less chakra than he has. The Jinchuriki of the three tails, Yagura for example had less chakra than Kenzo so long as he didn''t tap into the three tails within him.

 Beast abilities

    Beast abilities


    (Normal pov)


    That was it wasn''t it? The thing that bothered me the most about the slimy Sannin, he was me gone wrong. Orochimaru''s story was not anything new but neither was my own. Born a genius, held on a pedestal and saw sess everywhere. Then something happened to change them and they went on to do great or terrible things. This story scheme was asmon as it got and I knew that the only thing stopping me from going down the path to terrible deeds was myself. People like to think that they were responsible for the actions of those around them but it wasn''t true.-


    The only actions one is truly ever responsible for are their own, Orochimaru alone was responsible for the way he turned out as those choices were his alone. Teachers give knowledge and time to their students but how that was used was the students choice. I understood this and epted it but my sensei was not the same. To some degree she felt responsible for the way Orochimaru turned out and even now felt responsible for myself as well. Don''t get me wrong I was happy to have her as my sensei but that didn''t mean I wasn''t aware of why she took this role.-


    "Let me guess the old man called you specifically to be my sensei just so I didn''t turn into the snake right?" I asked and she looked ashamed.


    "No need to look like that it''s only to be expected after all. "Once bitten twice shy" I believe the phrase goes. Orochimaru turned into a vile person and no one close to him seemed to realize it until it caused irreparable damage to the vige. Obviously when a child who shared so many simrities appeared you all wouldn''t want to risk repeating the mistakes of the past. But I can assure you that I have no intention of turning into anything like that man. Feel free to see for yourself in time." I said calmly before leaving the woman to her thoughts.


    We didn''t talk much over the next few days beyond her correcting any mistake I made or further exining something I was having trouble grasping. I couldn''t really me her for it since I had exposed her and the old mans reason for my cement under her. She probably felt shame or like the bond between teacher and student had been dirtied by this reason but I didn''t see it that way.


    While it was true I would have preferred a sensei who didn''t have a motive for agreeing to teach me beyond seeing me reach my full potential there was nothing wrong with this either. She treated no differently than Shizune and taught me earnestly so I had no reason toin. In truth this entire conversation was simply for her own benefit so she could get over it. I am not Orochimaru and if I had a say in it would never be like him beyond what I am now.-


    Heavy thoughts aside there was a breakthrough in my chakra nature transformation in regards to copying my beasts. I had finally discovered how to replicate Rens poison nature transformation and I really wanted to punch the old man when I did. The reason for this was that it wasn''t a single chakra nature, not a kekkai genkai either mind you. No, it was a yin-yang chakra blend that was heavy on yang energy that turned the chakra into poison. In other words it wasn''t a real change in chakra nature but more a transformation of chakra itself so that it was close in appearance.-


    The rest of my beasts abilities were either the exact same way or legitimate kekkai genkai from the fusion of two chakra natures. My cats ability was more yin heavy and my snakes ability was yang heavy to the extreme to the point it might as well be considered pure yang release. Let me tell you those clones were next level helpful since unlike what I had thought they were still connected to me in a sort of hive-mind and basically let me be in three ces at once.-


    I could only handle three clones unfortunately as any more caused my mind to overload and gave me nosebleeds and debilitating headaches. It was totally worth it though as my sensei practically begged me to teach her how to do it as it was perfect for an iryonin. Most that died waiting for medical attention did so because one iryonin was always just that, one person. Clone jutsus always suffered from chakra problems and were fragile as any damage no matter how small dispersed them. My new clone jutsu that I dubbed "Mitosis clone jutsu" didn''t have that issue.


    You paid an absolutely massive amount of chakra to create a clone but after that the clone and yourself both regenerate chakra equal to what your max was and the cherry on top was that the clones were also entirely physical so you basically multiplied yourself. Destroying a clone was nasty business though as the thing dissolved and you had to experience the feeling of death and pain until it was finished. I had both my sensei and Shizune swear on penalty of death not to share the jutsu with anyone before I taught them how it worked.-


    Both of them were wise and practiced the chakra maniption with shadow clones like I did since failure had some nasty consequences. Full body stage five cancer, multiple organs, too much blood and a few other fun conditions were all possibilities. Unlike myself who could sense the way chakra moved within a body these two didn''t have this privilege and needed step by step molding instructions from me AFTER they got the yin-yang ratios correct to pull it off. There was a lot of deformed shadow clones during that month before they managed to pull it off a single time.-


    My sensei asked me if she could at least tell report the jutsu to the vige even if I wasn''t going to share it since it definitely qualified as a forbidden jutsu due to it''s cost and effects. Konoha had very strict policies in ce about forbidden jutsu so while I was VERY reluctant I agreed. It came as no surprise that we were summoned back to the vige days after that report was sent. It took time for the information to reach the vige and then return after all. We were at the border of thend of fire and hot water when a dozen masked ck clothed shinobi ambushed us.-


    It was early in the morning on a overcast sky that shaded the tall grass and trees around us and we all leapt away when the first senbons(needle-like throwing weapon) came straight towards us.


    I stretched out my senses and frowned "Twelve all with chakrasparable to Shizunes." I reported and my sensei and fellow student both had stern expressions.


    "Twelve Jonin level shinobi, someone really doesn''t want us to leave this ce. If I''m right at least one of these shinobi has a way to shoot down your hawk as well." Tsunade said seriously as the twelve ninjas stepped into view with emotionless eyes staring us down and weapons in in view.


    "This is a capture unit, look at the weapons. Not a single thing meant to kill buts and senbon for crippling and poisoning." I said seriously and my sensei looked grim.

 Dealing with the attackers

    Dealing with the attackers


    I quickly used the handsigns for the summoning jutsu before summoning three of my beasts that could fight at this level, Akasha, Kiba and Ren. Kiba and Ren weren''t directly powerful enough to fight against foes this strong unlike Akasha but their abilities made them nightmares to fight even at this level. Kiba''s lightning cloak ability gave him speed and prative power that even my sensei said could threaten Shizune to a degree. Rens ability on the otherhand was capable of turning the environment into a toxic zone that only those with immunity to it or techniques to suppress it could survive within.-


    Akasha was my most dangerous beast however as she could teleport at very little cost AND she was physically powerful enough that my sensei said that she could likely kill most Jonins in a direct confrontation.


    "It''s time to hunt." I spoke as my beasts appeared and their rxed and curious emotions instantly transformed into a predatory and violent state.


    "I almost feel bad for these guys, almost." Tsunade said as she saw my selection.


    The enemies didn''t just stand there though as once it was clear we weren''t going without a fight all hell broke loose. Senbons rained down while everyone here burst into action in their own ways.


    Shizune and I flickered to the sides as my sensei charged forwards and my beasts dealt with the senbons in their own ways. Akasha vanished and reappeared in the same instant behind one of the ambushers with her mouth already closing on their head. Ren glowed a sickly green as a toxic mist rose from it''s body corroding the falling senbon to nothing before they could even strike. Kiba burst into electricity and repelled the weapons using the prizing effect of the lightning chakra before blurring towards the ambushers.


    I myself left after images as I circled two of the ambushers using body flicker. One of them started weaving handsigns and a wave of water shot out of their hands covering a wide area. It was pretty smart as close quarters body flickering like what I was doing could be disrupted by area of effect style attacks. Unlike what they were clearly expecting however I didn''t dodge but directly switched my taijutsu stance to bear form and threw out a punch at the wave.


    "BOOM!"


    The air itself around my fistpressed from the sheer force of the blow before gettingunched forward at a very fast speed through the wave and into one of the ambushers. That particr shinobi barely had time to widen their eyes in shock before the air crushed them as it forced it''s way forward regardless of an obstacles in it''s way. I rxed my body after that while releasing a steamy breath of air. The bear form utilizes my entire body and as a result was the most devastating in terms of power but at the same time also the most tiring.-


    Despite that I chose to use it at this moment for a single reason, intimidation factor. My sensei had long exined to me the importance of mindset in battle. If my enemies thought of me as an unbeatable threat they wouldn''t be able to perform their best. It was a subconscious factor that could mean the difference between life and death. My attack just now turned someone only slightly differing in strength to the remaining ambusher to paste so you can image the sort of image that cements into their head about facing me. The ambusher started rapidly weaving handsigns while creating distance from me before their chest swelled and a giant fireball flew out of their mask.


    ''Sage art: Swamp rush.'' I thought as I supercharged mudslide jutsu with sage chakra and spat out a torrent of mud to conflict with the fireball.


    "FWOOSH! CRACKLE!"


    The water in the mud shed with the fire release while the earth in it hardened and shattered from the heat but a sh of chakra like this was a very bad idea against me. A fact the ambushers was clearly aware of as they cut off the jutsu before flickering away to avoid the massive amount of mud from hitting them.


    ''Sage art: Malefic scorpion mist.'' I thought as I switched to using Rens poisonous chakra ability supercharged with sage chakra excreted from my sweat pores.


    Immediately a miasma of ck toxin exploded from my body and rapidly began to kill off the surroundings like it was decay given visible form and set loose on the world. I wasn''t the biggest fan of this jutsu because it killed off the patch of area I used it on but I could console myself with the knowledge that thanks to the natural energy in the attack it would just regrow stronger than ever.-


    The ambusher retreated further and further from me as the cloud of concentrated death expanded moreand more as it was fueled by my massive chakra reserves and endless sage chakra from my body constantly making more. Once I deemed the size big enough I cut off the flow of energy and started drawing the miasma back to me causing it to condense into a semisolid state around me using nothing but pure chakra control and my connection to the attack. From the outside I looked as though a demon had manifested as my form was obscured in a thick inky ckness that was eight feet tall and only barely humanoid.-


    ''Sage art: Malefic destroyer''


    If the ambusher wasn''t frightened before I was willing to bet that they were now if the tenseness in their body and dted pupils were anything to go by. That didn''t stop me from charging them though as I wanted to remove them from this battle. Meanwhile in the other part of the battleground my beasts were working with Shizune and my sensei to deal with the other ambushers. Akasha was keeping them tense as she prowled with her teleportation serving as a factor of unpredictability that they needed to watch.


    Kiba was harassing them with fast but light attacks that made it hard to focus and Ren had already covered the whole area in a thin green mist of poison that the ambushers were suppressing with mixed results. Shizune and my sensei had already created a vine for for Rens standard poison and thus were entirely unaffected by it. The ambushers were suppressing the poison in their system but there was no stopping it as it seeped in through every breath, every pore and even their eyes. Their deaths were only a matter of time at this point and they knew it as they fought as viciously as possible.-


    Despite all of this however not once did any of them genuinely have any killing intent which showed a serious amount of conditioning and training to have so much loyalty. My sensei got hit with a dirty trick as all of the ambushers ripped open their shirts before slitting their skin to bleed out. Not in a fatal way but to stir up her phobia to take her out of the fight entirely. It worked too as she froze up allowing the ambushers to put her and Shizune on the back foot as she wrestled with her emotions.

 End of battle

    End of battle


    I noticed this and mentally cursed as my sensei was trapped between fight and flight at the worst possible time. Abandoning my target I rushed over to that group of ambushers but was stopped as my previous target raised an earthen wall in my path.


    ''Tch , of course these bastards have a n to prevent me from reinforcing those two after exploiting my sensei''s phobia. Fine then , lets see you stop this! <em>Sage art: Destruction pearl</em>!'' I thought as the poison around me tightened and condensed into a single marble as ck as the void above my right palm.


    I wound back my arm and my muscles swelled as I focused my strength there before I threw the marble at thergest concentration of enemies.


    "Dodge!" I yelled and the enemy tried to stop me but they were toote as the marble broke the sound barrier after piercing through the earth wall like paper.


    "BOOM!"


    The marble struck the ground right in the middle of the enemies in an instant before detonating. My beasts, fellow student and sensei managed to get mostly out of the way before it went off but some of the attack hit them. Skin, flesh, blood, stone and metal vanished as the highly corrosive poison evaporated everything in a ten meter radius of where the marble impacted. This attack consumed even itself as the pressure had scattered it''s energy wildly but it had proven effective.


    Of the twelve ambushers only five still lived and even then they were missing a good amount of their bodies be it limbs, flesh or organs. Those on my side weren''t unscathed either as they also lost some skin and flesh from the residuals at the edge of the attack. The only enemy still in fighting shape was my initial target and they immediately tried to flee.


    "Since you came why don''t you stay!" i yelled as I flickered in front of them and threw out a palm perfectly t and covered in chakra flow that they turned to dodge but ended up only taking nonfatal damage but were impaled on my arm none the less.


    "DIE!" I spat as I flooded their body with lightning making them fry around my arm.


    The battle was over but there were no enemy survivors as they all activated a suicide explosive seal on their heads destroying their brains while killing them.


    "Are you alright?" i asked seriously after gathering up with them.


    My sensei was treating Shizune and my beasts injuries when I got there and it was Shizune who answered me.


    "We took some damage but it would be much worse if you hadn''t used whatever that was or warned us beforehand. What was that anyways? You''ve never used it before." Shizune asked and I could tell that my sensei was also listening even if she wasn''t looking at me.


    "That was Rens poison taken to the extreme, a toxin so powerful that it corroded all it touched without discrimination. Even when I am the one controlling it I have to be careful that it neveres in contact with me directly by coating myself in ayer of chakra. I don''t like using it because it destroys nature in that area." I said honestly as both mine and Shizunes gazes fell on the wide bald dead zone where my poison once was.


    "Hanzo the smander has a simr attack that he also dislikes using for the same reason. The poison swamp jutsu." My sensei said after she finished treating Shizune.


    "I suppose that I should feel honored to bepared to such a legendary figure." I joked with a smile.


    "That wasn''t apliment brat!" She said in mock anger but i could tell that she was still reeling from the fight.


    This was not a pleasant experience for her especially as she got faced with a lot of heavy shit all at once. Her phobia, will to protect Shizune and myself, suicidal ambushers, and my admittedly ill thought out final attack all at once. While as a ninja I was sure she would recover soon enough it didn''t mean she was in a good ce mentally.-


    I collected all the bodies of our ambushers and sealed them in a scroll to present to the Hokage when we saw him as it was clear that these people knew stuff they shouldn''t. Stuff that only the vige should know and that meant there was a mole or a traitor somewhere. I also didn''t get a big head about the victory over this group of special Jonin or Jonins as none of them where truly trying to kill us and were acting strictly to capture or cripple. A fact that my sensei made abundantly clear as well.-


    I was strong, way stronger than anyone my age should be in fact. But I was only as powerful as a particrly lopsided special Jonin and not even one at the peak but towards the lower middle of the pack. Taijutsu was my strongest trait beyond medical ninjutsu but against a skilled special Jonin or Jonin I was only a slightly more tricky opponent to kill. It wasn''t even a matter of how dangerous my techniques were but sheer experience and tactical knowledge difference. My sensei also told me that in a way she was also responsible for my level of power as she hadn''t taught me much aboutbat but focused on medical ninjutsu instead.-


    While that was true there was nothing wrong with that since while she was able to fight that wasn''t her main profession unlike myself. I was a battler in and simple so obviously learning medical ninjutsu didn''t really help much in this regard. Don''t get me wrong there was some ovep as I knew the sensitive and fatal parts of the body to attack as a result and could to a degree use chakra scalpel offensively but that was about it.-


    Well I suppose I could technically also use what she taught to create poisons but that wasn''t really my path. Rens ability was different as it was literally just chakra use but gathering nts and refining them over several generations to get a poison wasn''t an appealing idea for me. Anyways the rest of the trip back to the vige was uneventful as there were no more ambushers lurking along the path. It had been nearly seven months since I left the vige originally so I was curious to see if there had been any change in it since then.-


    The two shinobi guarding the gate to the vige verified our identities and weed us back while being especially respectful of my sensei. We didn''t rx though but rather stayed in a state of readiness until we got in front of the Hokage himself. The old man took one look at us after we entered his office before the smile on his face fell away.


    "What happened?" he asked sternly.

 Chance meeting

    Chance meeting


    "We were ambushed on the way to the vige and the attackers knew things that they should not if they came from another vige." I said as I ced the scroll with the bodies on the desk.


    "I need details, what exactly did they know that they shouldn''t have?" the old man asked seriously.


    "First was that they clearly knew about my beasts to a degree. Second was that they both knew about and nned to utilize my sensei''s phobia against her. Finally they were only ever trying to capture us which made little sense unless they knew something only the vige should, the reason we were summoned to the vige." i said honestly and he had a grave expression.


    "Is this true?" he asked my sensei and she nodded.


    "The matter of your new forbidden level jutsu will have to wait as I investigate this matter but we WILL be discussing it." he said and I was dismissed after being told to write a report.


    Shizune and my sensei were told to stay though which i didn''t really mind all that much. After spending an hour or so filling out the report i turned it in and left the building to go check in with my family since at this time Naruto should be in the academy. Nobody even batted an eye as I flickered across the rooftops to my house and when I arrived I was a bit disappointed to see that my parents were out on a mission. They had left a note on the dinning room table for me should I havee back while they were gone. Technically I didn''t have to live with them anymore since I had graduated but I didn''t have my own ce yet.-


    I was saving up for a parcel ofnd at the edge of the vige near the mountain at the back of the vige. The ns owned most of that but there were a few pieces that could be bought due to how inhospitable they were. The piece I had my eye on was a sandy and rocky area near the base of the mountain that nothing grew in. The reason I wanted it was because it had a surprisingly dense amount of natural energy yet with no ntlife I was certain that there was treasure there.-


    If I was lucky it would be some sort of natural energy conductive chakra metal but more likely it was just a particrly powerful underground nt. While the first option was the best for me since I really should get myself a weapon the second was still good as a nt like that was bound to have powerful medicinal effects. Anyways thend cost a staggering one hundred million ryo(the currency of this world) due to the ns hiking up the price to stop people from buying it. I was making serious money by gambling like I did but even after nearly half a year of the stuff I had only twenty million ryo to my name.-


    Certainly not a small amount by any means and if I wanted another property I could definitely afford it but I unfortunately had my heart set on that one ce. Oddly there wasn''t any sort of banking system in this world so I literally carried my wealth on me in a scroll at all times. It was one of the reason banditry was so popr despite shinobi regrly killing them in fact. Hit a single rich merchant as he is moving arge amount of money and you are practically set for life.-


    The same was true of nobles and ns as they had their own treasuries that held vast amounts of wealth at any given moment and as a result were juicy but dangerous targets. With wealth and authority came greater and greater security in ce to protect those things. Lets take the Uchiha treasury for example. Despite all but two of the n being dead nobody tries to rip it off as there are so many traps, seals and failsafe''s in ce that you may as well just slit your throat to save you the time as it was almost suicide to attempt.-


    Leaving my house I headed to my most popr eating spot, Ichiraku Ramen. Teuchi the owner and operator of the ce had a masterful menu that was both nutritious and delicious. Pushing aside the curtain to the shop I found that there was only a single person here at the moment.


    A middle aged man with spikey long white hair and red shinobi outfit, Jiraiya of the leaf sannin.


    "I hadn''t expected that this would be how we met. My usual order old man." I said taking a seat next to him while cing my order.


    "I''m afraid you have me at a loss as I have no idea who you are kid." Jiraiya said honestly.


    "Kenzo Mizuyama, student of Tsunade Senju." I introduced myself and his eyes widened along side his smile.


    "You don''t say, well as luck would have it I happen to be in the vige to meet your sensei after hearing she wasing." Jiraiya said with a wide smile.


    "She should still be debriefing with the Hokage so if you hurry you may catch her. You probably already know but bring sake if you can. she has a taste for the sweet cherry blossom kind at the moment." I said with a smile.


    "Thanks for the tip kid!" he said excitedly as he rushed off after downing thest of his bowl of ramen.


    It was an open secret that the man was pining after my sensei and if he shared so much inmon with me like she says then I don''t mind helping him with that goal a bit. If nothing else it would serve as a source of entertainment to watch. You can me Naruto for thatsince the guys love of pranks rubbed off on me a little.-


    Teuchi brought me my standard six bowls of spicy seafood ramen with extra shrimp and I happily dug in. I chatted with the man about what I had been up to since I left while also getting the run down of how Naruto was doing as well as any interesting things that happened in the vige. The yellow haired brat had been getting in trouble a lot for pranks all over the vige but was otherwise hale and hearty which was good to hear. I was worried he''d ck off without me here to keep him on track but that didn''t seem to be the case.-


    There was one interesting that had happened in the vige while I was gone that Teuchi spoke of. Apparently there was a beast merchant in the vige who had shown up a couple months ago to sell beasts to shinobi that she had collected across thends. This wasn''t a new thing by any means as these sort of people regrly visited the various viges since summoning animals were always in demand but had short supply.

 Danger sheep

    Danger sheep


    I myself had been to a few of these merchants disys and I was usually very disappointed. Most of the beasts they had were ordinary creatures that had the tiniest chance of bing chakra beasts and thus not worth my time or money. A sensitivity to chakra didn''t mean that a beast could be a chakra beast despite that being the primary indicator that was used to determine it. Capturing actual chakra beasts however was a tricky and usually dangerous business so these merchants rarely risked it and were thuscking in good quality beasts.-


    That said the merchant Teuchi told me was currently in town was one I was familiar with and knew for a fact did try and capture chakra beasts since the risk had an equally great reward if she seeded. I leisurely made my way to the bazar area that these sort of merchants upied in the vige all the time and ignored most of the ones trying to trick me out of my money. Not to say these merchants were scammers as that was a fast way to get put in a early grave when you dealt with ninjas as your clientele.-


    It was just that the hype they tried to peddle their wares with rarely stood up to reality even if they did operate in a manner like advertised. That said I did stop at a few ces that my senses found something moderately interesting in. One such ce was an herbal trader who had a ginseng that was attracting an above average amount of natural energy. The man tried to sell me some wolf grass or other expensive herbs but my interest was only in that ginseng. Another ce I stopped was a traveling "antiquities dealer" that was in fact just a grave robber for abandoned tombs.-


    The reason i stopped at such a disreputable ce was that he had jeweled egg that he clearly didn''t realize held a sealed unborn chakra beast. The seals were frankly ingenious as the unborn beast was prevented from hatching but fed chakra and natural energy from the air to improve it''s talent and power upon birth. Basically the person who made this set of seals was artificially creating a powerful chakra beast but judging from the jewels on the shell had lost the egg or had it taken from them before they could im their prize.-


    I had not idea how long the seals had been in ce and thus feeding the unborn beast but I did know where the egg came from, Uzushiogakure or the vige hidden in the whirlpools. In other words this jewel egg had been taken from the grave of someone from the now long dead Uzumaki n vige. The peddler tried to spew some bullshit about where he got it to upsell the price but I t out pointed out the identifiers that he missed and then gave him a generous but firm price for the egg.-


    Finally though I reached the beast merchant and saw the tomboy woman with short ck hair and muscr physique sitting back smoking a cigar silently. "Boy! I had worried I''d have to track you down after hearing you were outta the vige!" she said with a heartyugh when she saw me walk up.


    "Just got back today in fact, hope you have something good saved up for me Toge." I said not surprised at the masculine way she spoke.


    "You''re lucky your taste in beasts is all inclusive as I just so happen to have a powerful one that I can''t sell since no one else wants it, not forck of trying mind you." she said as she got up and walked over to a metal cage with a ck cloth over it.


    She pulled the cloth away to reveal what was in the cage and I admit that I was halfway tempted to think she was messing with me as it was a sheep of all things. You know the fluffy things that are universally know as prey items, yeah one of those.


    "Don''t go letting this soft and harmless look fool you this fucker damn near killed me to capture. Got this weird ability to turn things it steps on explosive, bastards fast too. It''s why I got chakra suppression bands on it since I don''t want it to blow up my cart." Toge said seriously while the sheep was perfectly calm and acting like any normal one as it ate some food pellets from a bowl.


    Chakra suppression bands were as the name implied bands that were made specifically to deprive a chakra user from their chakra via special seals. I personably didn''t like the things because they messed with my senses as I couldn''t get an urate read on someone''s chakra if they were wearing one. That said I wasn''t doubting Toge at all as even with the bands on it the sheep had a heavy concentration of chakra near it''s feet.


    "You want toe with me?" I asked the sheep and it paused mid chew and then nodded. "Alright I''ll get you in a moment and get those bands off you but you can''t go blowing things up understand?" I said with a smile and the sheep nodded with a reluctant look at Toge.


    "You never cease to amaze me with the critters kid, I''ll sell it to you for fifty thousand this time even if it''s worth more just to get it outta my hair. Also don''t think I didn''t notice that look ya bastard, you were nning to blow up my shit weren''t you?" She said while ring at the sheep that just snorted and looked away.


    I paid Toge and had my new beast follow me out of the market as I ignored the looks I got since it was a sheep of all things.


    "Is that a sheep?" Shizune asked with a confused expression after she found me on the street.


    "More or less." I said with a shrug.


    "Why do you have a sheep?" she asked still very much confused.


    "It''s a chakra beast and I bought it for my collection. Apparently it can make anything it steps on explosive, sounded like a useful ability to try and copy." I said honestly.


    "Like paper tags?" she asked surprised.


    I just shrugged again "No idea since I haven''t tested it yet, speaking of want toe with?" I asked and she nodded.


    Toge wasn''t messing around when she said it was fast as it was able to keep up with us after we started jogging which for shinobi at our level meant we were moving quite quickly. Eventually though we got to an empty training ground and I got to see it''s chakra ability in action and I was not disappointed. The way the ability worked was actually quite simple but was equally useful and ingenious. Basically the sheep molded it''s chakra into a fire nature and then left a "stamp" where it put down it''s hooves that acted like a sort ofndmine as the chakra went dormant until triggered somehow. The explosions were pretty strong too as they were about the equivalent of a grade 1 paper tag that might as well be a frag grenade.

 Elemental minefield

    Elemental minefield


    Toge was mistaken about what the ability actually did though I could see why as without sharp senses it truly would appear as though anywhere the sheep stepped turned explosive. In truth though the ability was actuallyprised of three interconnected parts. The first was the transformation of normal chakra to fire elemental chakra. The second was the molding of the chakra into a dense but stable state. The final was a unique way of using chakra to ce a sticky "trigger" on the chakra when it was ejected from the sheep''s hooves.-


    All together and the sheep effectively created elementalndmines that went off at the slightest disturbance. Copying the ability was as a result not all that hard since I already had all the basic parts pretty much figured out and only needed to put it into practice. Unlike the sheep though I could create these ndmines" from any part of my body which effectively made me a very porcupine like existence. Like just imagine an enemy goes to grapple me in some way only to end up with a powerful explosive attached to his hand.-


    The best part though? I could use the ability with ALL of the elements for different effects. Earth chakra for example caused a rain of hard stone shrapnel to go everywhere upon detonation. Wind chakra was basically a razor trap that shredded everything in a few meters when it went off. Lightning was my favorite though as it effectively struck the nearest thing with a thick bolt of the stuff. Water was pretty much useless though as it just sent water sshing outwards but besides the impact was entirely undamaging. I imagined that it would be a good way to mess with people who fell into a trap though.-


    If you covered a whole room in these mines and then had it sealed airtight the whole room would flood and drown whoever was there if they couldn''t bust out in time. Honestly though at that point you may as well just use a different element since it would kill them way faster. Shizune said that it would be a useful jutsu for water release specialists since they could create an environment that worked for them in a hurry. I hadn''t thought of it that way but could see the merit in that utilization not that I was nning to share this jutsu since the would ruin the surprise when I used it in the future.-


    Plus once I get my property set up I was going to boobytrap the unholy hell out of it and this jutsu was perfect for that. Anyways after I mastered the sheep''s ability I had it sign the summoning contract and then set it at my parents house with a note and a couple million ryo that they could use to take care of it. I also set a long term mission at the vige mission center for someone to feed it everyday until my parents came back.-


    I was generous with my payment and even with the discount I got as a shinobi of the leaf it still cost me a good two hundred thousand ryo since it was technically a low B rank mission due to the sheep being a chakra beast. I just realized that I hadn''t exined mission ranks yet so I should probably do that. D rank was non shinobi rted missions, find a cat, pick weeds, that kinda stuff. C rank wasbat or mild shinobi rted things that any genin should be able to do.-


    B rank was where things got spicy as that was whenbat was expected with other shinobi(the weaker sort of course) or was a shinobi specific task of some difficulty. A rank missions were for Chunin or Jonin exclusively because that was just how difficult they were. S rank missions were for jonin and elite Jonin alone as the difficulty or power of the enemies were expected to reach that level. Finally was SS rank missions that were the most difficult and rare as few things were ever that extreme as it involved a Kage or S rank ninja.-


    "Your path is a strange one but if you stick to it I can see you reaching Lady Tsunade''s level or maybe even higher. It''s clear that these abilities you are copying have great potential if you were to collect enough of a variety." Shizune praised after watching me master my new beasts ability.


    "Of course, I would never choose a path with no future after all." I said proudly.


    Sheughed at that and left for the Senjupound since she stayed with my sensei normally when they are in the vige. I myself headed for the forest of death since I was mostfortable when surrounded by nature. The ce was a deadly domain for most but for me it was practically my second home in Konoha as I held dominion over all within it. I even had a hidden cubby in the high up trunk of the tall trees that I regr stayed when I was training in private. It was a simple ce with a hammock and vine curtain covering the entrance that I lit up with a jar of bioluminescent mushrooms. It was surprisingly hard to spot if you didn''t know what you were looking for which served me well.-


    ----------------------


    (Meanwhile in a ROOT base)


    "Our information must be incorrect as otherwise there should be no way that team should have failed to capture the targets. Update the file on Kenzo Mizuyama to Jonin status, the boy may not be at that level yet but I don''t want to take the chance that I am wrong again." Danzo ordered with a dark expression.


    ''I''ll need toy low after this as Hiruzen will no doubt tie this incident to me. Luckily the seals destroyed the brains so he won''t have definitive proof and only suspicions. Still this whole operation was a massive waste of resources as that was years of time and training to create those operatives destroyed by mere faulty information. I knew I should have snatched up the boy long ago but now i fear it''s toote if this new forbidden jutsu is any indication. The ability to be in multiple ces at once in a true sense, such a technique is wasted on people like that.'' he thought with dark greed.


    Moving on to another piece of troublesome information he couldn''t help but frown. The report stated that Tsunade Senju was beginning to ovee her fear of blood which did not bode well at all for his ns. Despite his advanced age Danzo still coveted the throne of Hokage and if she were to no longer have a fear of blood then more likely than not he would be passed over for the position, again. He could understand why as herbat and medical prowess in addition to her lineage made her a prime candidate when her age was also taken into ount.

 Strange thing

    Strange thing


    It took the Hokage three days to finish his investigation on the ambushers but failed to find any hints as to who sent them. I was less than thrilled at that news but there was nothing I could do about it. During these three days of down time I had gone to see my sensei so that she could hopefully help me unseal the egg I got from the market but even she said that it would take awhile since it was an unknown seal and she needed to study and replicate it''s effects before she was confident on lifting it from the egg.-


    Tampering willy nilly with a seal was a good way to ruin everything so I just left it with her and went about my own business. Naruto somehow found out that I was in the vige and tracked me down at Ichiraku while skipping ss that I had to knock some sense into his head for doing. Iruka sensei looked amused when I dragged him into the ssroom to drop off but didn''t say anything. Other than that though I hung around with the yellow haired brat for most of the next few days and even showed him a few of my new abilities.-


    "Ah man , I can''t even get a stinking clone jutsu to work even after all that chakra control practice!" heined and I had him show me what he meant.


    As far as I could tell his control had greatly improved since Ist saw him but moments before he''dplete the jutsu his chakra would riot unnaturally.


    "Let me try something." I said and ced my hand over his stomach before closing my eyes and sending my chakra into his body.


    At first everything felt just fine but when my chakra got close to his reservoir I got attacked by SOMETHING there and received severe bacsh. My whole chakra flow was disrupted and I had a massive migraine hit me but I for the briefest moment felt an extraordinary amount of anger from whatever attacked me.


    "Are you alright!?" Naruto asked horrified as he tried to help me up since I had fallen from the sudden pain of the attack.


    "Yeah I''ll be alright but me and your gramps are gonna need a long talk about whatever the hell that is. You don''t suck at jutsu but rather something is inside your chakra reservoir messing you up for some reason and I want to know why." I said frankly pissed at the discovery.


    It was crystal clear that whatever that was was not just some part of Naruto but something else entirely and my instincts told me the old man knew precisely what. Naruto himself tried to stand up for the old man saying that he must have a good reason for hiding it if he had and I didn''t argue about that as it made logical sense.-


    What wasn''t okay was that the old man had allowed Naruto to think that he was some sort of talentless hack this entire time. Frankly speaking it was a miracle Naruto hadn''t turned into a bitter hate filled person with the way the vige treated him till now in addition to his struggles to improve himself as a shinobipared to all their ssmates. Yet the old man hadn''t made any attempt at all to tell Naruto that it wasn''t his fault and just left him to his own thoughts instead. Look I get that the man was too busy to personally see to Narutos wellbeing but the man had to known what something like this could do to a kids mind.-


    Unfortunately the old man wasn''t receiving visitors and I was turned away at the door to the building. I was halfway tempted to just walk up the side to his window but unlike when I was an academy student this would get me in serious trouble this time. There was a reason for the way things worked in the vige and I had to respect the rules or get punished for it. One of those rules was that you couldn''t just go bursting into the Hokages office unless it was an emergency and this didn''t count.-


    Whatever was up with Naruto had clearly been there for a long time and wasn''t a threat to his immediate health and thus not an emergency. I had even vented my frustration at the matter to my sensei and she gave me a weird look before telling me that it was probably best if I let it go. She wouldn''t say why though which made me even more frustrated and determined to ask the old man what was what when I saw him next.-


    Another thing that was worth mentioning was that Jiraiya was usually around in some regard where my sensei was concerned. I ck listed him from my list of people to try and help though as he broke the bro code and ratted me out to my sensei who tried to extort me in exchange. That didn''t go great for her though as I made a wager instead for my entire fortune that she took and promptly lost setting us back to square one on that front. The Hokage ended up summoning us again on after this three day period for two reasons, to tell us he couldn''t find anything on the attackers and to discuss my new forbidden technique.-


    "I don''t mind exining what it does and even the few things I have learned to watch out for when using it but I refuse to hand over technique itself. Speaking of exnations what the hell is inside Naruto?" I asked bluntly.


    "Oi! I told you to leave that alone!" Tsunade said sternly.


    "And I would if whatever the hell it is wasn''t actively trying to sabotage him." I shot back firmly.


    "How did youe to learn of this matter and what do you mean by it actively sabotaging Naruto?" the old man asked with a frown.


    "I had noticed that Naruto had trouble with his chakra control a while back but just thought it was just crap skill until a few days ago when I sent in a probe to try and figure out where the issue wasing from only to get attacked by whatever that thing is. I know it''s not Naruto because whatever it was was absolutely full of anger and he was very much not. When I mean sabotaging I mean his control of his chakra is good even by my standards yet the moment he tries to use a jutsu that thing riots making him fail." I exined heatedly.


    "I can see why you are upset and in this case your anger is justified to a degree. I honestly didn''t know that that thing was causing him such problems but I can assure you that i will rectify this issue by the end of the day. Now I''m afraid that I must insist on you leaving a record of the technique behind as it is far too important to risk losing should you die." the old man said seriously.

 Forbidden talk and Sage

    Forbidden talk and Sage


    "I don''t see how since only I and these two know how it works exactly. Don''t bother asking them either as I already had them swear not to tell anyone else on penalty of death. The only reason I even let them know how to do it was because I know without a shadow of a doubt that they will not abuse the technique for some violent purpose but only to treat more people. As far as I am concerned shadow clones are more than sufficient as is." I said firmly.


    "Think of how many shinobi lives this technique could save! Surely you are not so callus as to deny them a technique that could save their lives in the field?" The old man asked imploringly.


    "You seem to misunderstand something very important about this technique, it doesn''t have any ce in truebat. The technique effectively splits your perception by as many clones as you have active at once. What this means is that you make more than three clones and not only are you going to suffer from three times the informationing to you at once but you then have to control three additional bodies which both of these two will tell you causes a seriousg in motor skills. In other words you don''t get more skilled ninjas with the technique but simply more mediocre ones instead." I said honestly.


    The old man looked at my sensei and fellow student and they both nodded seriously. "I see, that does indeed put a damper on that particr argument. But even you seem to agree that in the hands of an iryonin the technique shines brilliantly. Is that not reason enough to leave a record of it behind for such shinobi of the leaf to ess?" the old man questioned.


    "I am going to be frank with you but all that will achieve is to get them killed or worse instead. First off this technique takes a MASSIVE amount of chakra even for me and leaves the person using it highly vulnerable for a couple days after they do so as they adapt to having more than one body. Then of course you need an extremely good control of your chakra which admittedly any iryonin worth a damn likely has. Of course there is also the issue of Yin Yang chakra maniption followed by literally causing your entire body to basically split in half to create a second fully physical you without giving yourself cancer or multiple of the same organs and keeling over without understanding why. Basically the only people who could use the technique at all are extremely skilled iryonin and even then there is a very good chance it would kill them instead with the smallest mistake." I said bluntly.


    The old man had a grim expression when he heard this which told me he understood exactly what would likely happen if my technique was made essible.


    "Is there any way to refine this technique into a safer version?" he asked hopefully.


    I shrugged "Probably but I am not even going to try since it would only serve someone else and not me at all. Like I said I am more than willing to leave a detailed record of what the technique is about as well as a clearprehension of what the minimum requirements and dangers are to learn it and if someone feels confident on learning it I am more than willing to test them and if they pass teach it to them under a seal enforced oath." I said calmly.


    The old man sighed "I suppose that''s the best I can hope for but you do understand that I can only give you a reduced amount of mission points for this. Now do you have any other techniques you might be willing to share with the vige, for a price of course?" he asked with a smile.


    We haggled a bit after that about what I was and was not willing to share from my repertoire of abilities that I copied from my beasts. One such ability was my cats ability to blend perfectly into shadows that he really wanted. Not that I could me him since it was perfect for stealth missions or moving at night.-


    I hadn''t managed to figure out how to copy my lizards ability to turn invisible but the old man promised arge reward if I made a copy of the technique after figuring it out. Apparently the second Tsuchikage Mu had figured out how to turn invisible as well but had taken that information with him to the grave and no one else had gotten even close to replicating it. I had idly wondered if he had also copied it from some form of chakra beast like I was nning to or not.-


    ording to the old man and many historical records that was actually roughly how many people long ago first created jutsu after the sage of six paths introduced chakra to all living beings. Frustratingly there was very little information on the man himself beyond his special eyes and only five of his treasure tools. Not to say he didn''t use more than that only that there were only records of five currently known. Unfortunately only one of their current locations were known in the form of the amber purification jar that apparently sealed away a person or being through their very soul name.-


    The other four alongside that jar were previously in possession of Kumogakure but had been lost with the death of the gold and silver brothers after they defected from Kumo taking the treasures with them as their "birthright" since they were descendants of the sage himself apparently. I wasn''t all that interested in any of the five tools myself as they were all about sealing with the exception of the banana leaf fan that summoned wide scale hurricane winds when used.-


    The fan was the only one I had any interest in and even then it was only because I felt that a sage like myself was obviously the best wielder of such a thing. If I was lucky and the property I wanted had a nature energy attuned metal vein instead of a nt like I thought I might even be able to make my own sage tool. Making shinobi tools with special properties was sort of an open secret as most Kenjutsu users had swords forged with special properties that set them apart from simple steel or iron weapons. Rarely those special properties were actually special but there were exceptions.


    For example the seven swords of the mist or the de of thunder spirit that the second Hokage himself made. All of which had properties that set them above most other tools in the world. Hell one of the swords was a living creature apparently that literally ate chakra. Sounded like my caterpir that had gotten as big as me after eating my own chakra regrly for years. I honestly think that it was getting close to cocooning and turning into whatever type of insect it was which could be a butterfly or moth.

 Teaching

    Teaching


    Anyways the old man did as he had said and fixed whatever was going on with Naruto by the end of the day but it oddly felt like my friend was now more limited than before. Don''t get me wrong his chakra felt the same as normal and he was perfectly fine physically but I somehow got the impression that he had weights on for some reason. He was even able to pull off the clone jutsu without a hitch now. Not that this was really surprising considering his chakra control was good enough that even I was fine with it.-


    "Look Kenzo I can make clones now too! So does this mean i can learn that nature transformation stuff you did!?" The blonde asked excitedly while showing off his clones.


    I shook my head "Those two things aren''t even remotelyparable so don''t go getting a big head. As a reward though I will teach you something that I''m sure you''ll get some use out of even after you get out of the academy." I said with a smirk.


    I then pulled out a shuriken and attached a thin thread of chakra to it before throwing the shuriken at a tree. With a slight flick of my finger though the shuriken swerved around the tree and stuck into another behind it.


    "This is chakra thread maniption and using it you can do things like what I just showed you and more, interested?" I asked know full well that he definitely would be.


    "I can y so many pranks with something like this!" he said with an excited looked that made me sort of want to hit him.-


    Only Naruto would take something with so many practical uses and demote it into a tool for pranking people.


    "Regardless of what you n to use it for you still need to learn how first. Lets go step by step here since if I give you a vague exnation you''ll be stuck for a stupid amount of time on it. First you need to send chakra to one of your fingers like this." I said showing him my glowing pointer finger.


    He focused and after a few tries copied what I was doing though considerably worse since he was unfamiliar with this use of chakra unlike me.


    "Good now carefully push it outwards like this while trying to make it as thin as you can." I exined while showing him my own chakra narrowing like a cone and extending out to create a short but very thick thread.


    This step was considerably harder for him as he was unable to get it even after an hour of trying. I told him to practice some moreter until he could create a thread like I did and even gave some advice how to make it easier like how a stable and even flow of chakra makes it simpler to create a thread. He swore that he''d get it figured out before I left again and I believed him as once he was motivated the sky was the limit for him.-


    I treated him to a meal at Yakiniku BBQ since I wasn''t really feeling ramen at the moment and we ate a lot of meat that I had grilled since Naruto sucked at cooking. Not that I could me him since he never had any interest in actually learning how to cook more than ramen cups and campfire roasted meat, a shinobi staple. It was actually a required topic to learn at the academy how to catch, clean and cook pretty much any sort of edible animal.-


    My own preference was typically geared towards foraging nts than hunting but I wasn''t above killing off the sick or old animals to feed myself. I tried to leave the young ones alone though as I didn''t like being the reason they never reached old age. Probably hypocritical I know but that was just the way I saw it. Anyways after eating Naruto headed home and I checked my parents home before heading to my little tree fort in the forest of death when I saw they weren''t back yet.-


    The next day I visited the local gambling establishments and got promptly kicked out of them after going on a hot winning streak earning thirty million ryo by betting ten million right at the start. These ces had thought that I sucked at gambling like my sensei and thus could earn some easy money off me, they were wrong. ckjack and five card draw were my go to games and I lost much less than I won which eventually led the ces to kick me out as that was bad for their wallets.-


    Still I got my money and left with a smile while the gambling house banned me for life. Left with a few hours to kill until Naruto got out of ss I headed over to the hospital to lend a hand there since my sensei had given me the go ahead to use my training without her in the vige. It was honestly not all that busy beyond the standard civilian presence for flu, broken bones, cuts, scrapes and bruises. I busied myself treating these small injuries and illnesses for a few hours before meeting up with Naruto to continue teaching him how to create chakra threads.-


    By the time we were set to go eat dinner he had made good progress as he had gotten the control of his chakra to his finger stable and was only struggling to create a thread from it. We ate at a stir fry ce this time that specialized in seafood rice with vegetables and egg. They had their own signature rice sauce that had a nice sweet and spicy thing going on but not like sugary sweet but more like fruit sweet. Naruto wasn''t a huge fan of it but that was fine since everyone had their own preferences for vors.-


    He tended to prefer strong meat vors and smooth umami ones while I liked spicy and sweet vors with an added herbal kick if possible. My sensei on the other hand enjoyed a mix of both meaty and sweet vors with a little sourness from her alcoholic side. Like i said everyone was perfectly entitled to their own preferences in this regard. One thing i appreciated about Naruto was that despite being quite outgoing he wasn''t the sort to try and push his own opinions on you for something like this. Morals and stuff like that was a different matter but otherwise he respected your opinion on things.-


    I got another two days before my sensei was pretty much done with being in the vige as some of the political parties here were starting to bother her for one reason or another. As thest person in the vige with the name Senju as well as being both the grand daughter of the first Hokage and the thirds disciple she held a lot of sway that they wanted to use to their advantage. So just like that I said my goodbyes once again and we headed out alongside Jiraiya "coincidentally".

 Pervert

    Pervert


    The white haired sannin tried to butter me up as we traveled but I ignored his existence since he still hadn''t apologized for breaking the bro code. If a bro tries to help you bag a girl you DON''T tell the girl in question, it''s a rule and he broke it. Was this petty on my end? Yes, yes it was. But I didn''t care as i was offended at the sheer audacity of this dude to try and butter me up to get closer to my sensei after what he did.-


    He tried a bunch of things to bribe me too jutsus, food, promises of new beasts, training and even a trip to a fucking brothel at one point. Thatst one in particr earned him a swift punch from my sensei when I told her to get him to leave me be. He got the message at some point and decided I was a lost cause and went back to trying and flirting with my sensei and getting stone walled for his efforts. At one point we stopped in a vige in thend of hotsprings where we went into one of the hotsprings.-


    I was just rxing in the hotspring after bathing when he burst into the area.


    "You never saw me!" he said hurriedly before hiding under the water mere moments before my sensei and Shizune burst in in nothing but bath towels.


    "Where''d that bastard go!?" my sensei roared angrily at me and I just sighed before electrocuting the water since it didn''t take a genius to figure out what had happened.


    Jiraiya burst out of the water screaming and my sensei wasted no time at all punching him in the gut, hard.


    "BOOM!"


    The air pressure blew open both her and Shizunes towels and I hurried looked away after identally getting an eyeful.


    Admittedly they had very nice figures with shapely waists and narrow tight looking vaginas. My sensei had huge firm boobs while Shizune had more average but perky boobs. My brain and senses working much faster than normal meant that briefest second of exposure was more than ample time for me to see everything in exacting detail. I had to purposefully stop my blood flow to my groin to keep up the fa?ade that I didn''t see anything. They didn''t even check up on Jiraiyas health before they left.-


    "Sorry for disturbing your bath Kenzo-kun." Shizune said apologetically but I just waved it off.


    Once they left i looked at Jiraiya with an annoyed look "You can stop pretending already." I said calmly and the man opened his eyes and groaned as he sat up.


    "What sort of man rats out another like that?" he asked aggrieved.


    "One who is wise enough not to try and peep on my sensei and fellow student intentionally. Honestly if you have a death wish there are faster ways." I said casually.


    "Don''t tell me that you aren''t even a little tempted to see what they hide under those clothes after spending so much time with them? Unless..." he muttered thatst part but i knew what he was referring to.


    "First off I am perfectly heterosexual and unless you want every bird between here and Konoha to shit on you you''ll make sure to remember that. Second is that I know better than to shit where I eat. Only an idiot would lust after people they see daily and are likely to beat you to death for perving on, I pride myself on not being an idiot. Finally I tried to help you woo my sensei previously and you threw me under the bridge so you are already on thin ice. Try something like this again and not even the Hokage will save you from what I''ll do to you. Are we clear?" I asked with my full killing intent.


    "Message received." the man said with a serious expression.


    "Good now leave, you are ruining my bath." I said while leaning back and sinking into the hot waters up to my neck with a sigh of contentment.


    The toad sannin wasted no time at all vacating the area at that point and I got another hour of rxation before I got out and got dressed for bed.


    As I had gotten ustomed to doing I summoned my cat and lizard to keep watch while I slept since the fact that the culprit behind the kidnapping attempt had still not been found meant I may still be in danger. The next morning I was unsurprised to find that Jiraiya had checked out of the inn early and left the vige without us. The man was clearly smart enough to know that if he showed up in front of my sensei so soon after the incident that she was very much likely to try and kill him.


    After that we rode on Ren who had made a breakthrough in power recently and had grown to the size of a carriage. Ren didn''t mind carrying us and was even rewarded for it by my sensei with potent medicines that were especially useful for chakra beasts.


    "Where did you get those medicines from?" I asked curious.


    "After fighting alongside your beasts against those ambushers I decided to work on a special reward for them for when they help us. Did you know that there is a surprisingck of supplements for chakra beasts?" she asked after exining herself.


    I nodded" I had briefly looked into it before I graduated but other than lures that tempt them to show up but didn''t actually benefit them any theres next to nothing. The Inuzuka n has a feral pill but that is made with ninken in mind and almost useless to me." I said honestly.


    "In the next town I''ll show you how to make these treats yourself." she said and I smiled happily and nodded.


    Honestly I was impressed to find that in truth the treats were sort of like soldier ration pills but instead of just letting you function without food for days while giving a boost to chakra restoration these ones helped the chakra beast that ate them refine their chakra into a smoother form. This in turn let them grow more powerful faster than if they relied on their natural growth and any natural treasures they could find to consume. Thattter method of growth was one of the reasons chakra beasts were hunted to near extinction in fact as ninjas also wanted those treasures since they were usually potent medicines.-


    The best part was that the ingredients were all fairly cheap and easy to get my hands on. After learning how to make the treats I began to try and improve the recipe with my sensei''s permission. She admitted that she honestly didn''t try all that hard to make the original recipe since it wouldn''t be much use to her personally once I left her care. This thankfully meant it was fairly easy to improve the recipe to be nearly three times as potent. The ingredients got a bit on the pricy side but were stillmon enough that I had no issue procuring more in most viges that had an herbs dealer.

 Strange seals and history lesson

    Strange seals and history lesson


    While we were stopped in a small vige in thend of rivers I had asked about that egg i had given to my sensei.


    "Whoever created this seal was either mad or a genius and I am having trouble deciding which it was." she said as she opened a scroll to show me what she was talking about.


    The face of the scroll was covered in dense intersecting symbols ced in seemingly no real order and some even were written on top of others.


    "I have not studied sealing myself so I may not be the best informed about it but this looks like a chaotic mess." I said honestly.


    "No you are right, it does look like a chaotic mess and that''s because it wasn''t supposed to be written like this. That is what makes me think this person was either mad or a genius. Most seals are designed to be two dimensional in nature and thus tend to be structured in a way that has patterns and geometrical shapes to them. Hexagons, trigrams, squares, that sort of thing but whoever wrote this seal went in a whole other direction that I frankly have never seen before, three dimensional." she said seriously.


    "That sounds like a logical step forward though?" I said confused.


    "Once again you''d be right to think that but the problem is that no one has ever figured out how to do it. It may as well be an entirely different field as all the currently known seals are written in two dimensional symbols but those symbols don''t work in a three dimensional way. At this point it is widely considered madness to try and research three dimensional seals which is why I am conflicted as to whether the person who sealed this egg was mad or a genius." she said frustrated.


    "Hmmm, well from the symbol here we know that it was an Uzumaki who had this egg previously so what are the chances that they were the one to do it?" I asked and she sighed.


    "The chances are pretty high but after Uzushiogakure was destroyed and looted by all five major viges the chances that we can find anything there about this is unlikely. The ce has been abandoned for so long and been ran through so thoroughly that besides rubble we''d be lucky to find even garbage at this point." she said depressed.


    "The history books are all vague on that but why was that vige destroyed anyways?" I asked since clearly the matter of the seal would take quite a bit longer than I had anticipated.


    "The reason it''s vague is that in truth there isn''t one definitive reason why it happened but many. To start off with you need to understand that the founding and only real n of the vige was the Uzumaki n. Even if there were technically other ns there almost all of them had Uzumaki blood in them. Anyway the Uzumaki n were the premier and in truth only real sealing experts in the entire world and admittedly didn''t share their secrets on the topic enough."-


    "Add on that they all each and every one had extraordinary chakras and physiques you can imagine how powerful the entire n was. The working idea was that this power earned the jealousy of the four viges that banded together to destroy the Uzumaki n and steal the secrets of sealing for themselves. As much as I hate to admit it they seeded too. After ughtering most of the n they ransacked the vige and each as a result raised their own level of sealing by a massive amount." She exined with a mncholic air about her.-


    "So it was greed that led to the destruction of the vige?" I asked for confirmation and she nodded.


    I fell into my thoughts at that point while she was more than willing to also drop the topic. I couldn''t help butpare my situation to the Uzumaki ns at that time and find an ufortable level of simrity. Perhaps at the moment I only had a few secrets that could incite jealousy of that sort but as I collected more and more beasts and developed my own techniques that would start ballooning to a concerning amount.-


    Funny enough my permanent state as a sage wasn''t one of those secrets as I honestly wasn''t sure how it worked. It was a bit like trying to exin how to breath without knowing it yourself, it was simply just something I did automatically. I was pretty sure it wasn''t something gic either or the vige likely would have figured it out with all those "medical tests" they ran on me when I was still in the academy.-


    I had a theory that it may have something to do with my soul due to how I got it but souls weren''t exactly amon or easy thing to research so I couldn''t verify that. Whatever it was that had taken my memories of this world in exchange for this gift had likely done so by manipting my soul in some way since you know I had died and all. Honestly I wasn''t all that eager to try and unravel why I was like this at the moment either as even if I knew I doubt it would matter.-


    Anyways after having that conversation I just left the egg with her to see if she could figure it out. We traveled thend gambling and treating people as we went and both she and I grew during this time. Me in knowledge, experience and physically while she grew as a person as she started to get closer and closer to breaking the hold her phobia had on her. It was peaceful living and I was fine with it until we came across something problematic. It was a young girl with red hair being chased by hunter nin from Kirigakure.


    "Tsunade Senju, this matter does not concern you. Leave the girl and walk away." one of the hunter nin said fiercely.


    "Six hunter nin chasing a girl no more than eleven across thend, who is she that would warrant such a manhunt?" Tsunade asked and the hunter nin tensed up.


    "Terumi Momo, my big sister is Terumi Mei!" The girl yelled and i could see the information click in my sensei''s mind.


    "Protect the girl Kenzo." she said and I didn''t need to hear anything more as I immediately started weaving my hand signs for the summoning jutsu.


    Biting my thumb i mmed my hand into the ground ''Summoning jutsu!'' I thought and arge puff of smoke appeared as the hunter nin shot towards us with full intention of killing all of us.


    From the smoke the forms of Akasha, my hawk, my lizard, Mizuhe and Ren appeared.


    "Akasha, Mizuhe, Ren no survivors, the others conceal and protect this girl." Imanded and my beasts snapped into action.


    The hunter nin each weaved their own handsigns and a thick mist began to appear in the surrounding obscuring our vision. This was the [hidden mist jutsu] that the vige was famous for and why they were so good as assassins.

 Hunting the hunters

    Hunting the hunters


    Ren and Akasha intercepted the hunter nin with Akasha forcing them to split up or risk dying to her dagger like ws. While Ren dug under the ground and moved to ambush the hunter nin from below the ground. The girl flinched a bit as my lizard promptly shifted her onto it''s back with it''s head before turning both of them invisible which caught me a bit off guard as I didn''t know that it could do that. I was honestly expecting it to climb her and turn invisible so she was hidden from one direction but this totally worked too.-


    If it wasn''t for my senses being so sharp I wouldn''t even know that they were slowly leaving thebat area as they both looked like mist that blended with the rest. Mizuhe was the most terrifying of my beast for this sort of environment since it''s ability let it turn into mist which meant it could literally be anywhere in this area and no one, not even I knew where.


    "Fucking bitch!" I heard one of the hunter nin yell angrily after hearing what sounded like my sensei punching someone.


    ''Can''t let her and Shizune do all the work now can I?'' I thought as I dropped to all fours and shot towards the closest unfamiliar chakra signature.


    The mist had several spoofed chakra signatures but I was no normal sensor nin and could easily figure out which were the real deal or not with natural energy. Living things always had more natural energy around them then their surroundings so I just ignored the chakra signatures that didn''t fulfill this requirement. My hearing picked up rustling and and a spike in the chakra I was heading for so I dodged to the side as several water bullets rained down where i just was.-


    I coated my hands with chakra flow and moved from mynding to leaping at the hunter nin in one fluid motion which caught them off guard. I know that because a kunai swished through the air above me as they tried to hit me but clearly hadn''t realized I was much lower than that. This also told me how the [mist hunting jutsu] worked and I was not impressed. Basically all it did was sharpen ones senses so that they could pick up the movements that disturbed the mist around them.


    The speed I was moving made them think that I was running normally but in fact I was on all fours and as a result the hunter nin missed me and died as my chakra ws ripped through them. At the same time I noticed two of the other chakra signatures vanish as Akasha and Mizuhe got them.


    ''I believe that just leaves two more.'' i thought right before the sound of another punchnding rung out ''Or one I guess.'' I added with a chuckle.


    "Konoha will regret messing with the hidden mist!" Thest hunter nin yelled with a tone filled with venom.


    They then tried to flee but that was simply not going to happen as I flickered at my full speed which was faster than even my sensei to catch them.


    "Capture them alive Kenzo!" my sensei called out likely understanding what i was doing already.


    Perks of being so familiar with each other is that we can predict the others actions in the field like this pretty easily. Not that I wasn''t fairly straightforward to understand as I didn''t believe in letting prey escape if I could help it. That was all I saw this hunter nin as, prey to be hunted.-


    This squad of shinobi weren''t all that strong as they were all at most upper chunin level with the exception of two Jonin that were killed by my sensei and Mizuhe respectively. Thisst hunter nin was running quite fast but they were only chunin level and as a result had no hope of out pacing me even in the mist.


    "GAH!" eventually I tackled them to the ground like a tiger pouncing on a deer and restrained them by dislocating all of their joints.


    "You''ll get nothing from me Konoha scum!" the shinobi spat fiercely as he tried to bite down on a poison tooth.


    I ignored that and merely put my hand in his mouth and ripped out all of his mrs calmly as he tried to bite me. My skin was akin to stone though so that resistance did nothing but break his other teeth in the process. Once i was satisfied with his inability to try and poison himself to death i ripped apart his tough jacket with my brute strength and stuffed pieces of it into his mouth to keep him from biting his tongue off.-


    My sensei and Shizune showed up shortly after that and grimaced at the sight of all the blood on my hand and the bloody teeth on the ground.


    I quickly wiped off the blood from my hand since my sensei wasn''t quite there yet and she sighed in relief and rxed. It took me a moment to realize that she was actually less bothered by the blood and more that I may have been injured.


    "No need to worry I am perfectly fine, this guy though well he has a few teeth broken and missing. He may slur when speaking so sorry in advance." I said reassuringly while apologizing for making the interrogation harder.


    "That''s fine since he won''t be our problem anyways." my sensei said seriously.


    "Whose problem is he going to be then?" I asked curiously.


    "We will pass him to the Terumi n through that girl as a good faith gesture from Konoha. Even if he doesn''t have anything worth knowing just the fact that we rescued the younger sister of Mei Terumi who was at the head of the bloodline faction of the mist alone will earn the vige a lot of favor with them." she exined and I nodded.-


    Callus as it sounds we probably wouldn''t have gotten involved if it was just some random nobody being chased. It simply wouldn''t have been worth the trouble at that point but with the girls identity revealed that changed the name of the game. It suddenly became imperative that we keep her alive and deliver her safely back to her people.


    "Wouldn''t this count as an A rank mission?" I asked with a smile.


    "Hahaha! Sure thing brat I''m sure I can talk the old man into adding it to your record as an A rank mission." she said with a wide smile.


    "Well then lets go have a chat with little miss Terumi shall we?" she added and I slung the hunter nin who was screaming into his makeshift gag, no doubt all sorts of obscenities, over my shoulder.


    A few momentster we reached the battle ground and I had to help my sensei get past the puddles of blood that was all that remained after my beast ate the bodies. Yes I know letting them eat people is normally wrong but these were enemies so it didn''t count.

 Moving forward

    Moving forward


    I closed my eyes and extended my senses through the natural energy until I found the disturbance created by my lizard and the girl.


    "Follow me." I said and started heading that way with my sensei and Shizune following me.


    Soon we reached a couple miles away and approached an inconspicuous looking tree that didn''t stand out at all. "Enemies are gone you can reappear now." I said and my lizard began to slowly be visible again.


    "Who are you?" the girl asked in confusion as she looked at me while dismounting my lizards back.


    It wasn''t hard to figure out why either as Mizuhe was on my shoulder and Ren and Akasha were leisurely making their way here as well. In the shinobi world someone like me with such an easily identifiable feature like my many beasts should not be a secret to the other viges at my strength. As a result this girl who was the younger sister of the leader of the bloodline resistance faction in the hidden mist should know all the worth knowing names of the other viges. The trick here however was that I was pretty much a total secret beyond my tutge under my sensei.-


    The other viges only knew that I was learning medical ninjutsu from my sensei and was decent at it but as far as everything else worth knowing was concerned they were in the dark. In a manner of speaking I was seen as an extension of my sensei like Shizune was rather than abatant in truth. Sure the information that I was learning under my sensei was valuable to know for the other viges but it also served as a red herring to distract them from my other sides. This was something my sensei had long exined.-


    "Nobody worth remembering Miss Terumi." I said politely as I desummoned all my beasts other than Ren.


    This was a political matter at this point so I was nning to treat it as such. Like I was taught in the academy I wasn''t going to expose shit nor was I going to volunteer information unless specifically told to. I may as well be a tree for all the good speaking to me would aplish. The girls seemed to pick this up and pouted a bit before ignoring me and turning to my sensei.


    "I am sure my n will reward you well if you would be so kind as to escort me back to thend of water." the girl said calmly and like a noble would.


    "I will need to send a message to the Hokage about this matter but otherwise that won''t be a problem." Tsunade said with a friendly smile.


    "I imagine that you will protect me until an answer could be had from the lord Hokage yes?" the girl asked and my sensei nodded. "Than please by all means go ahead, I would very much like to get back to my n as soon as possible." The girl added easily enough.


    My sensei wasted no time at all writing down a report on a spare scroll before using the summoning jutsu herself which made me flinch slightly. Thankfully what she summoned wasn''t a sage beast like her slug summon but rather an older looking monkey in shinobi gear.


    "Hmm? Tsunade? If you are summoning me like this you must have something urgent to report to Hiruzen. Hand it over so I can go back to my nap already." the monkey said with a yawn as it outreached it''s arm.


    "I am sorry for disturbing your nap Enma but this is urgent." Tsunade said as she handed over the scroll.


    Enma just waved it''s hand dismissively before sparing me a nce and looking puzzled before shrugging and vanishing in a puff of smoke. Monkey king Enma, the personal summon of the third Hokage and also the fastest method of each of the mans disciples getting information to him but only when it is truly urgent. I was surprised that he wasn''t a sage beast considering all three of the third Hokages disciples had summons from the three mysterious sage regions publicly known to exist. His confusion at myself was understandable though since as far as I know to beasts I seem like a sort of ruler regardless of what type it is. -


    "Now we wait for the response. In the meantime can i offer you in any food or water?" Tsunade asked and the girl shook her head.


    Seeing as this had rapidly devolved into an awkward silence as we waited for the response I took out a brush I had and started busying myself with brushing out the sand trapped between Rens carapace segments. It always got some stuck there when it burried itself and took a while to get rid of it without help.-


    A horse hair wide faced brush worked wonders for getting the stuff unstuck and as a bonus Ren seemed to enjoy the feeling. The girl was the most surprised at how docile Ren seemed while I worked but didn''t do anything beyond watch. Once I was done I smiled and flopped down to take a nap under the speechless and helpless looks of everyone else present. We were in a rare bit of chilly weather at the moment with plenty of clouds to block out the sun so I wasn''t going to waste such a perfectly good oppurtunity for a nap.-


    About two hourster there was another puff of smoke and Enma reappeared which woke me up.


    "Goodd, you get it." the monkey king said giving me a thumbs up before handing my sensei a response scroll and vanishing in another puff of smoke.


    My sensei quickly read through the contents of the scroll before sealing it and putting it away. "Make room Kenzo we are going to thend of water." she said and I did as told.


    "Get on the scorpion so we can set off Miss Terumi." my sensei said to the girl who looked very reluctant but did as told.


    "It''s warm?" she muttered in surprise after sitting cross legged in the center of Rens back.


    My sensei and Shizune both mounted Ren as well and the scorpion set off in the direction specified at full speed which was not as fast as we could run but still much faster than by normal carriage. Unlike a horse that did best on t terrain Rens legs let it run over uneven terrain without any issue at all and as a chunin level chakra beast it was pretty fast as well.


    It took about two days to reach thend of water with us stopping only to rest and give Ren a break. At one point I collected fish from a river to feed Ren and let us eat as well as I roasted them over a fire release technique. Nothing crazy just a simple fire without the smoke that would give away our position and some of a seasoning blend that a merchant we treated gave us as a gift. Ironically it was popr in thend of water ording to the girl who was surprised to find us using it.

 The bloodline resistance

    The bloodline resistance


    With the girls directions we eventually arrived at a vige called Kokonami that was a ce that had the bloodline resistance members stationed as it held the nobat members of some of the ns. Craftsmen, ordinary folk and those unfit forbat resided here but that didn''t mean that it was ill protected but the exact opposite in fact. I sensed no less than thirty chakra signatures at the jonin level like Shizunes and many more at the chunin or genin levels. As we approached four of those jonin level chakras surrounded us warily.-


    "You are approaching a vige under the protection of the hidden mist vige, state your identity and purpose here!" one of the shinobi barked out.


    I desummoned Ren which let the shinobi rx a bit and we let the girl exin the situation. One of the shinobi rushed back into the vige to get someone who could verify the girls identity while we were told to wait. Still at least they weren''t acting as hostile anymore and had put away their weapons. It didn''t take more than a few minutes for the ninja who left to return with an old man who asked the girl a bunch of questions before smiling and giving the all clear.-


    As it turned out it was her grandfather who was in the twilight years of his life and unfit forbat as a result. That wasn''t to say that he wasn''t powerful as to be blunt the man reminded me of the Hokage almost in terms of the danger I felt from him. Once that was taken care of we were escorted into the vige and given lodging until someone from the resistance leadership coulde to discuss things in an official capacity.-


    That meant over the next few days we mostly treated themon injuries or aches and pains of the vigers or waited patiently. When not helping as a medic I myself spent the rest of my time honing my taijutsu near the vige with the Jonins who were willing to help out of boredom. My self created style was still full of ws that needed to be worked out per form and I had only removed them from the first four forms to date. That was the scorpion, cat or tiger, wolf and snake forms that had been honed to an eptable level.-


    The Bear, cricket and turtle forms were still very wed and I hadn''t even bothered trying to copy the sheep since it had a simr movement style to my wolfdog. The only real difference was that it was more evasive with it''s movementpared to the wolfdog that was predatory. The Jonin of the vige made excellent sparring partners as once I proved I could take the hits they fully exploited my taijutsu forms in our spars. For a normal person those hits would be dangerous but my skin, flesh and bones were so dense that i shrugged them off easily.-


    That alone gave me quite the reputation amongst the shinobi of the vige as an iron body. Obviously i held back in terms of speed and power during the spars but my durability wasn''t something I could really hide when I took next to no damage from any physical hits I took. Funnily enough most people in the vige seemed to think I had some sort of kekkai genkai which made them more friendly than before they got that misunderstanding. It wasn''t surprising since they were being hunted for having that exact thing by the Mizukage faction of the hidden mist.-


    My sensei, Shizune and I didn''t make any moves to correct this misunderstanding as it clearly helped us politically here and so we just didn''t say whether or not it was actually true. The person who was sent to discuss with us was a rather poor choice in my opinion, Ao the Byakugan killer. Ao was the only ninja in recent memory to sessfully manage to kill a member of the Hyuga main n and steal the prized dojutsu from his in foe. Sending him to discuss the details with us was little more than a power move from the resistance as it was a subtle insult.-


    "Seems Konoha is doing well to send it''s jinchuriki out of the vige so easily." he said as he scanned us with his byakugan.


    "You are mistaken, Kenzo here merely possesses arge amount of chakra naturally much like Raikage." Tsunade said calmly.


    Ao frowned but didn''t argue about it and moved on to trying to negotiate the cooperation that Konoha would be offering to the bloodline resistance faction. I shot down any attempt made at political marriage between me and them which he brought up more than once. It was easy enough to see that he was trying to bolster the hidden mists future with the attempt because while I may be loyal to Konoha there was no telling what any children I may have would hold loyalty to if a political marriage went through.-


    Before anyone says something about me being eleven the way this world worked was that children such as myself would be paired up politically in these situations and only actually be wed when they turned sixteen. It was a cultural thing as even the first Hokage met his wife Mito in this way though they were thirteen and fifteen at the time.-


    Ao even told me that it wasn''t up to me at one point which made the following statement from my sensei saying the exact opposite rather funny. Still I had to admit that the man was a skilled negotiator as even with that taken off the table he simply asked for more resources in exchange as a "show of sincerity" which made me wonder if he even wanted me as a bargaining chip to begin with. The rough draft of an agreement was finished after about a day of negotiation and we promptly left the vige.-


    I was d to be leaving too as I could feel gazes on me the entire time i was in the vige regardless of whether I was inside or outside. I couldn''t exactly justmand some bugs to attack those watching us either since that would not be good for a political mission like this. Ao was the worst though as even when he was talking with my sensei I could feel him constantly scanning me with that byakugan as if trying to memorize my chakra signature, which was probably what he was doing now that I think about it.-


    Annoyingly he kept staring at us until we were far far away and left his sensory range. Even then I could feel some shinobi following us from a distance and convinced my sensei to speed up to lose them. It might have just been caution from them but it was annoying in my opinion and i wanted to be done with it, needless to say I wasn''t a fan of shinobi politics.


    ''Naruto is going to be miserable if he every actually bes Hokage.'' I thought with a smirk as we ran.

 Run it’s course

    Run it¡¯s course


    We left thend of water and headed through thend of hot springs again and into thend of frost which was a distinctly unpleasant trip. The further north you went the colder it got and I had no clothes for that sort of environment. My own innate durability meant I didn''t need to worry about frostbite but by no means did that mean I enjoyed the cold. Luckily we came across a merchanting from there that had a bear pelt that I bought to bundle up.-


    "You look like a giant walking furball!" my sensei eximed with uproariousughter after I got covered.


    "Well excuse me if I wasn''t told we were going to the arctic north at any point. I''ll get it made into proper clothes once we find a tailor." I said with an annoyed huff.


    The pelt was way too big for me and looked puffy and odd on me but I was warm and that was all that mattered.


    "Don''t you know a shinobi is supposed to be prepared for any scenario they find themselves in?" she teased.


    "Oh is that right? Well then you must be a terrible shinobi since you always look surprised when you lose!" I shot back before flickering away before she could try and hit me.


    "Get back here you brat!" she yelled angrily as she started chasing after me.


    "You''ll never take me alive!" I yelled whileughing my fool head off, it was a good time.


    We eventually came across a vige that had been taken over by bandits which we freed in exchange for my pelt getting turned into a proper outfit that consisted of a long cloak that covered my torso and most of my legs and had long sleeves that covered my arms.-


    I still looked a bit weird since the dark brown fur of the pelt blended with my own rough dark brown hair that I kept short since it got irritating when long.


    "Eh? Not bad brat, it matches that whole wild vibe you have going on." my senseiplimented once I got the cloak on.


    "It''s a bit restrictive on my movement but I can live with it." I said not all that impressed with it.


    "Brat!" a voice said that sounded exactly like my sensei but clearly wasn''t since I was looking at her.


    We both looked around and I spotted arge ck bird sitting on the nearby fence.


    "Brat!" it spoke and I was tempted to blow it up.


    It wasn''t a chakra beast but just a particrly clever bird that had copied my sensei''s speech.


    "Brat! Brat! Brat! Brat!" the bird spoke the word over and over again and my sensei ended up rolling on the ground in tears as sheughed.


    I sighed but chose to ignore the annoying avian and left the vige. The bird clearly wasn''t okay with that and followed us for the next three days screaming that one word in an obvious attempt at ingratiating itself to me. If it had chosen literally any other word I probably would have been fine bringing it along and taking care of it but as it stood i was constantly tempted to kill it. The bird wasn''t really at fault since it didn''t know better and that was the only thing staying my hand.


    My sensei had no such issue. "That was amusing the first few times but it''s just irritating to listen to now." she said casually after snapping the birds neck to shut it up.


    "If I wasn''t fairly certain that it would have juste back if we tried to scare it off I would say that was needlessly cruel." I said honestly.


    "me it on your weird ability to attract animals to you." she said with a shrug.


    The bird was unfortunately too clever for it''s own good in this case as I hadmanded it to go away and it obeyed like always, only toe back after leaving. The damn thing used a loophole in what I said and was simply too stubborn for it''s own good which cost it it''s life in the end.-


    It wasn''t all weirdness as we traveled through thend of frost though as we stopped at a few viges to give treatment and to gamble. My sensei was as always terrible at it but I never walked away with less than I started. Thend of frost had it''s own unique types of illnesses and nts that my sensei taught me how to treat and I was getting pretty damn good at Iryonin jutsu if I say so myself. They tried to hide it but I noticed that I was nearly on par with Shizune in all regards or in some on par with my sensei.-


    I could diagnose, treat and create antidotes in very quick times in nearly every case we found with even other shinobi praising me. She tried to hide it but it was clear to me that my sensei was running out of things to teach me. What this meant was equally obvious, my discipleship was almost at it''s end nearly a year after it had started. One day she brought it up as we were leaving thend of frost and entering thend of fire again.


    "After we finish refining that taijutsu of yours I''m going to apply for you to get promoted the Chunin." she said with a conflicted expression.


    "I assumed something like that. No offense but you are clearly running out of things to teach me, it''s because I''m a guy right?" I asked calmly and she looked ashamed.


    "The yin seal and strength of a hundred seals are meant exclusively for women so I can''t teach them to you and you are confusingly resistant to learning to summon Katsuyu so I am truly running out of things to teach you. Ninjutsu as you know is not a subject I am very adept at and in terms of iryonin jutsu the only thing youck is experience to match me." she said honestly.


    "I''m surprised you are so bothered by the idea of graduating me, if anything i figured you''d be trying to get me out of your hair faster so you can go back to drinking whenever you want without your booze going missing." I said with a chuckle.


    "I knew that was you!" she saidughing.


    "You are worried that I''ll go off and get myself killed right?" I asked calmly and her smile faded and she nodded.


    "How about we make a bet on it? I''ll outlive you and you''ll stop drinking so much, that sounds fair I think." I said with a grin.


    "Alright I''ll take that bet!" she said holding out her hand which I shook before she mmed me into the ground hard. "a shinobi must always expect betrayal!" she said with augh that I shared as we dispelled the serious atmosphere.

 Chunin

    Chunin


    After that I only spent another two months under my sensei as she focused entirely on helping me hone myst three taijutsu forms. The bear form she shamelessly stole for herself since it suited her the best. I didn''t mind though since she was right and it did suit her strength the best out of all my forms. As a gift before I "graduated" I gave her a special alcohol blend that I myself had made in secret using natural energy rich fruits and herbs. I had only created a singlerge jar of the stuff but that was more than enough.-


    It could be considered a potent medicine in and of itself and was horrifically strong due to me using medical techniques to remove the impurities leaving a rich highly alcohol dense fruity liquid with a nice minty after burn. For Shizune I had infused a blue crystal I found in thend of water with quite a bit of natural energy so it shown like a valuable jewel attached to a ne. As a bonus the crystal also had subtle cooling properties. Tonton the little pig with them got a sneaky sage chakra infusion much like my own beasts before I finally left them.-


    My sensei was a bit cheeky and had pressured the Hokage into giving me a field promotion which the old man with clear reluctance did. I went from being a genin learning under Tsunade Senju to a chunin who had learned from her in all of about a day. The Hokage still got something out of it however as this had been made public information which turned me to the talk of the vige. I had squads of chunin and even a couple Jonin led squads offer me a position on their teams.-


    I couldn''t really me them since I was effectively walking health care as if they got injured out in the field I could patch them up better than anyone. I turned all of them down however as I wanted to spend some time patching the massive hole in mybat prowess that came in the form of jutsu. My ninjutsu repertoire was horribly outmatched by my taijutsu and medical skills. Sage chakra shone the brightest when used in jutsu so I obviously nned to fix this issue. The annoying part though was only the C rank and lower ranked jutsu were free to learn for the viges ninjas.-


    Everything higher than that was saved for rewards or needed to be purchased with mission points. I thankfully had quite the amount of mission points thanks to "selling" my own techniques to the vige. The second Hokage had set up rules where self discovered information or techniques that were sold to the vige earned three times their actual value so that the viges ninjas would be more likely to share their techniques. I had sold techniques and information at the C, B and even two at the S rank so I could afford to learn some A and B rank jutsu.-


    I didn''t though because I wanted to fill my other elements out with proper C rank jutsu first. That meant fire, water, wind and Yin release jutsu. For yin release I chose [Sly mind affect technique], [Demonic illusion: False surroundings technique] and [Mirage whistle technique] All C ranked genjutsu that served different but rted purposes. The first messed up the effected persons sense of direction as they will believe they are going in a straight line whereas in truth they will be going in circles. The second creates a false image over something so that when someone is looking at it it will appear as something else.-


    The final genjutsu was the only battle oriented jutsu on the list I chose as it used whistling to create the effect of miscing ones true position ording to the enemies senses. Effectively it was perfect for creating a distraction that allowed you to attempt the kill. My interest in these particr genjutsu techniques however was the effects I theorized they might have if I added sage chakra to the mix. Rather than mess with someone''s sense of direction what if sage chakra caused the first to mess with someone''s perception of movement where they believe they moved when in fact they have not?-


    What about the second one where under the genjutsu I could make them entirely miss the thing I cover? The final one though I believed would make the person effected by it perceive me all around them rather than in a single location. Each of these effects were on the level of B rank genjutsu at the least and would make any mission outside the vige much easier in the future.-


    If you are wondering why I didn''t try and grab any of the genjutsu that tortured the enemy it was simply because I felt that they were needlessly cruel. I didn''t like causing suffering, abhorred it in fact. Rather than grab something I know would cause suffering I preferred to get things that would make it easier for me to painlessly kill or incapacitate my opponents. Like might seem na?ve but that was simply the way I liked to do things. The rest of the elemental jutsu I took weren''t really worth mentioning since they were standard things like water bullet jutsu, fireball jutsu and gale palm jutsu.-


    None of them would have any interesting effects when I added sage chakra to them and would simply just create bigger and stronger versions of the same effect. I had some annoying responsibilities that came with being a Chunin though. For starters I had a minimum quota of missions per month that I needed to do. Ten D rank mission or three C rank missions or one B rank or higher mission. C rank healing missions were my go to at the moment since I was training my new jutsu''s and that soaked up the vast majority of my time.-


    I suppose I should also mention that I officially moved out of my parents house and into the forest of death. I had purchased supplies and built a tree house at the top of one of these frankly massive trees that was actually quite nice. The entire thing was made of treated wood to prevent fire and had thin metal sheets on the inside of the walls to withstand attacks. I didn''t expect to be attacked but better safe than sorry. The final touch was covering the whole thing in camougedting and casting the false surroundings genjutsu on it amplified with sage jutsu.-


    I had water tanks for showering and bioluminescent mushrooms growing in jars as my light source. I even had a small wood burning oven and furniture set up to cook or just rx. Naruto was super jealous of the ce but dropped any mention of getting his own when I told him how much it cost me to put together. Two million ryo and change was what it took to get this lovely little hideaway set up. It only took a couple of days to build otherwise since being a superhumanly strong ninja had it''s perks.

 Spies and element

    Spies and element


    This ce was only temporary though until I could earn enough to get thend I actually wanted. Honestly the only reason I even set up this ce was simply because it wouldn''t be appropriate to continue living at my parents and thend was free for anyone who wanted to set up shop there. As I had stated previously the forest of death was not a fun ce to live for anyone who wasn''t me. Poisonous insects, nts, powerful beasts that despite not having chakra could endanger even average Chunin and many other unfun stuff was all found in the forest.-


    My new house despite the illusion wasn''t something I kept secret and would be fairly easy to find anyways since the area around it had been imed by my beasts. I wasn''t surprised as a result to find people spying on it on what I am assuming was Danzo''s orders. My sensei had all but stated that the man was responsible for us getting ambushed previously even though there was no evidence of it. The modus operandi simply fit too well ording to her and after she exined previous actions he had taken that she knew of for a fact I couldn''t help but agree with her.-


    Calling the man a snake would be an insult to snakes as ording to my sensei the guy had no moral line he wouldn''t cross if he thought the oue worth it and that was a low bar to meet for him. My sensei said that he probably heard about my solid clone technique and decided to "acquire" it without letting it reach the vige, out of greed most likely. Knowing this I quietly made a deal with all the squirrels living in the forest that if they found anyone spying on my home and they pelted them with some of my specially made smoke pellets I''d give the squirrel who did it some good food.-


    You want to talk about unnerving? Imagine hundreds of squirrels spread across about three miles ofnd all armed with smoke pellets that exploded when thrown into what was basically mustard gas. Now imagine that they are all manically searching for anyone stupid enough to try and spy on my home to use those pellets on, Danzo was pissed. He even went so far as to use me of attacking my fellow Konoha ninjas for no reason. -


    The man got an ugly p in the face when I told the Hokage who had summoned me to discuss the matter EXCATLY what was going on. Rather than get me into trouble Danzo himself got into trouble since he had deployed shinobi to spy on me without any good reason. As should be obvious the Hokage wasn''t happy with this and reprimanded Danzo before asking that I choose a less aggressive method of counter surveince in the future. I agreed and we were effectively sent back to square one as Danzo lost this not so hidden sh and got nothing for his troubles.-


    At the same time I had to figure out a different method of stopping him from spying on me. The answer was simply to employ the squirrels again but this time merely as guards. The psychotic little tree rats were more than happy to keep an eye out in exchange for a daily ration of good food. It was a little pricey to buy this small army of squirrels so much food but I could easily cover that amount with two or three C rank missions.-


    Kiba and Shino also came to visit sometimes and hung out with Naruto and me. Kiba was boisterous and frankly foul mouthed while Shino just silently sat there most of the time getting ignored by everyone except me. Let me tell you nothing bothers a member of the Aburame n like getting acknowledged. They all had almost no presence and were the embodiment of "face in the crowd" energy so getting singled out so casually throws them for a loop. Honestly I did it simply because I thought it was hrious to see Shino''s reaction. We even developed this fun little ninja game that we called Element.-


    It was sort of like checkers or chess except it was based around the five basic chakra natures and only a piece of the opposite nature could remove another piece from the game permanently. If a non-opposing element took a piece that piece came back into y after two turns. You got three of each element at the start and had to take the "chakra" piece of the opponent to win. Like in chess each element moved in a way that was specific to them and simr to how that element worked in reality.-


    We ended up spreading the game all over the vige and further once word got out about it and people starteding to us to get a set for the game. Naruto and Kiba were to me for that happening as they bbed about it at the academy and from there it spread by word of mouth. Funnily enough even the Hokage requested a set and gave me a mission to teach him and Shikamaru''s dad, Shikaku how to y. They both found the game impressive as it was both easy to y and at the same time held a lot ofplexity as well.-


    For example you needed to keep track of your upkeep to return pieces into y while also making sure you don''t run out of an element or you risked having a serious handy cap afterwards. Like if you permanently lost all your fire pieces you won''t be able to take any of your opponents water pieces and that gave them quite the advantage in numbers. Sure you could take their water pieces out of y for two turns at a time but they always came back like reinforcements arriving without you yourself getting any.-


    As any shinobi will tell you that numbers advantage could easily mean the difference between victory and loss. I had to admit though that both of these two were monstrously skilled tacticians as they were nning four or five moves ahead at all times and I only noticed it after seeing the setups going off. Like one time the Hokage purposefully let one of his earth and fire pieces get taken only for them toe back into y now perfectly poised to permanently take two of Shikaku''s pieces. The merchants that came to the vige also bought some sets from me in order to sell them to the bored nobles across thend.-


    Kiba, Shino and I all agreed to give the profits from the game to Naruto since out of all of us he definitely needed it the most. It wasn''t much but it at the very least allowed him to get a new set of clothes since his current ones were getting in bad condition. In my free time not hanging out or doing missions I worked on mastering my new jutsus until I no longer needed handsigns to use them. It took me about three months in total to achieve that once I had started it.

 Higher rank jutsu

    Higher rank jutsu


    With at least one jutsu of each element under my belt at C rank it was now time for me to spend some points to learn higher ranked jutsu. Something my sensei had drilled into my head was that in most cases B rank jutsu were the bread and butter of high rank shinobi instead of A or S rank jutsu. The reason for this was that B rank jutsu were at the sweet spot where they cost a reasonable amount of chakra and were fast and strong enough to be lethal in nearly ny percent of cases.-


    A rank and S rank jutsu were for sure more powerful than B rank jutsu but also tended to take quite the amount of time to perform or took unreasonably high amounts of energy. Take a quite famous A rank jutsu in Konoha for example, the Chidori. This jutsu was created by Kakashi of the sharingan but came with serious drawbacks in that using it required extreme senses due to the speed it gave causing the user to get tunnel vision. The jutsu also required arge amount of chakra that made it a finisher or opener type technique rather than one you can spam in most cases.-


    While I knew that I had the chakra to spam A rank jutsu I also knew that the best route to grow would be to master B rank jutsu first. It was like learning how to cook, a step by step type deal rather than a jump straight in and hope for the best type deal. With that in mind I chose a single jutsu from each element starting with[Demonic illusion: Tree binding death] that was a yin release genjutsu. It was a binding type Genjutsu that made the target think they were bound in a tree that grew around them that was based on Hashirama Senju''s wood release.-


    Next was the earth release [Earth rampart jutsu] that creates a wide and tall wall of solid earth that can defend against powerful attacks as well as be used to trap enemies. Then i chose the fire release jutsu [Dragon me jutsu] that created three dragons of fire that were for focused attacking rather than area of effect like fireball jutsu. A skilled user could even use the dragons to encircle a target in a violent ze that turned them to ash.-


    For lightning release I chose [Static charge jutsu] that unlike it''s harmless sounding name implied was anything but harmless. It was one of the jutsu created in the attempt to copy the Raikages lightning chakra mode jutsu and wreathed the user in powerful currents of lightning that served as a powerful defense. It was a failed copy though as it was weaker than the Raikages jutsu and beyond defense and proximity damage didn''t have any of the other effects of the Raikages jutsu. I chose this jutsu in hopes that i could figure out how to fuse it with Kibas lightning cloak ability to create a weaker but otherwiseparable version of the Raikages jutsu.-


    Moving onto water release I chose [Thousand needles of death jutsu] that used the surrounding water to create thousands of water needles that fell like raindrops from all directions. My reason for taking this jutsu was pretty clear as this was the sort of jutsu that yed really well with my poison technique as I believed that if I could use poisoned water it may even be elevated to A rank. Finally I took [wind sickle jutsu] for my wind release option as it was a direct upgrade to my hawks wind des that also utilized chakra flow to make it very sharp.-


    This was chosen so that I could hopefully figure out how to use chakra flow with the rest of the elements as well. Unfortunately there were no yang release jutsu publicly avable so I was stuck with the good old medical ninjutsu for that category. I suppose I could attempt to create my own but that would probably take me quite some time and thus was a future project. For now though I began to work on mastering these new jutsu and I have to say that the difficulty spiked from C to B rank.-


    I only needed a week or two for C rank jutsu but B rank were a whole other game as the handsigns went from about a dozen or slightly less to four or five dozen due to theplexity of the jutsus. I could move my hands fast but signing out so many signs took even me nearly thirty seconds which in a fight was way too long. Most jutsu were used in a matter of two or three seconds or less so thirty seconds was enough time for an enemy to crank out dozens of jutsu.-


    Thankfully the learning process for shortening the amount of handsigns needed was the same as the previous rank in that I just needed to manually mold my chakra rather than rely on handsigns to do it for me. I fond that I could easily lower the amount of needed handsigns from forty or fifty to twenty but after that it took longer to lower it. It was simply because of how damnedplex the molding was that I needed to take it step by step to remove each additional hand sign by manually molding my chakra.-


    It took me a month and a half to remove all the handsigns from the first of my chosen jutsu. At this time it was finally time for my previous ss to graduate from the academy. This was something Naruto was super excited about and he kept bugging me to try and figure out who his jonin sensei was going to be. This was despite me telling him that there was no way a Chunin like me was going to know something like that.-


    When the day came around for the tests for graduating to start I chose to wait for the news with Teuchi at Ichiraku.


    "Think he''ll score high?" the man asked casually.


    "He better after all the help I gave him to get to this point. I love the guy but he has the attention span of a housecat when he''s bored." I said with a helpless sigh.


    "HAHAHA! Yeah that sounds like Naruto alright. Any ns on what you''ll be doing with him after he graduates?" he asked afterughing.


    I shrugged "Depends on who his sensei is to be honest. Some Jonin are more hands off than others from what I know and depending on what he ends up with I will either personally teach him some stuff or just leave it to his sensei." I said honestly.


    The man nodded "Seems like a solid enough n. I wasn''t a ninja myself though so I can''t really say much to help I''m afraid." he said sadly like he was sorry for not being more help.


    "Hey you are one of the only people in the vige who didn''t treat Naruto like dirt for some inexplicable reason so I won''t have any of that self depreciating talk out of you, not about this you hear me?" I said firmly and the man nodded with a smile.


    "You really are something else Kenzo." he said softly.


    I shrugged "I''m just me, nothing more and nothing less." I said with a grin.

 Best list(Not a chapter)

    Best list(Not a chapter)


    Hi, Loskro here! So I was asked to make a detailed list of all the beasts that Kenzo has since it''s starting to get hard to remember them all. Admittedly this is a good idea considering unlike my pokemon story where there are in fact only seven that needed to be remembered and are each mentioned quite regrly this story doesn''t give more than brief mentions of some of the beasts. So here it is the list of beast currently and their stats that will be updated as the story progresses.


    Name: Ren


    Species: Emerald scorpion(chakra beast)


    Strength: Elite Jonin


    Ability: Chakra to poison conversion


    ----------------


    Name: Kiba


    Species: Wolf/Ninken hybrid(chakra beast)


    Strength: Jonin


    Ability: Lightning cloak


    ----------------


    Name: N/A


    Species: Brown hawk(chakra beast)


    Strength: Chunin


    Ability: Wind des


    -------------


    Name: N/A


    Species: Common cat(chakra beast)


    Strength: Chunin


    Ability: Shadow blending


    ----------------


    Name: N/A


    Species: ck fin turtle(chakra beast)


    Strength: Special Jonin


    Ability: Waterbreathing


    ----------------


    Name: Kuma


    Species: Brown bear(chakra beast)


    Strength: Elite Jonin


    Ability: Sr beam


    ----------------


    Name: N/A


    Species: Leaf viper(chakra beast)


    Strength: Chunin


    Ability: Mitosis clone


    ----------------


    Name: Akasha


    Species: Shadowless tiger(chakra beast)


    Strength: Elite Jonin


    Ability: Short range teleportation


    ----------------


    Name: Mizuhe


    Species: Ground cricket(chakra beast)


    Strength: Special Jonin


    Ability: Mistification


    ----------------


    Name: N/A


    Species: Twig gecko(chakra beast)


    Strength: Jonin


    Ability: Invisibility


    ----------------


    Name: Shiro


    Species: Great crane(chakra beast)


    Strength: Elite Jonin-> S rank


    Ability: Zero release


    ----------------


    Name: N/A


    Species: Unknown caterpir (chakra beast)


    Strength: N/A(cocooned)


    Ability: Chakra consumption/????


    ----------------


    Name: N/A


    Species: Hignd sheep(chakra beast)


    Strength: Chunin


    Ability: Chakra mines

 Traitor

    Traitor


    Time moved on after that and as the sun began it''s daily journey over the horizon Naruto finally showed up.


    "Don''t keep us in suspense , how''d it go?" I asked eagerly and Teuchi was also listening.


    "I passed all of the normal tests, even the written one but I still have toplete one more to officially prove my worthiness to bing a ninja!" Naruto said with a wide smile.


    Teuchi who wasn''t familiar with the process of graduating merely congratted Naruto proudly but I frowned as what he said was wrong. I knew for a fact that there was no extra test beyond what was standard. My sensei even exined to me that if anything the only "test" left was to see if the students were a match for the sensei''s themselves. Even then those tests were not something that truly effected whether or not one became a ninja, only whether or not your first assigned sensei was willing to teach your assigned squad. If you failed those tests then you''d simply get a different sensei based on the feedback of the first that should be a better fit.-


    "Naruto who told you that you''d have another test to pass and what exactly was this test?" I asked seriously and but my blonde friend and Teuchi looked at me confused.


    "Eh? It was Mizuki sensei. He said I needed to infiltrate the Hokage building and bring him a scroll of some sort to pass the test. Is something wrong?" Naruto asked confused.


    ''Mizuki? He hates Naruto though and barely kept up the fa?ade of civility around him and yet he told Naruto something like this? I smell foul y. But what scroll could he possibly want that he couldn''t find himself?'' I pondered for a moment before one came to mind and the n of Mizuki all made sense now.


    He was sabotaging Naruto before taking the forbidden scroll and betraying Konoha. The moment i figured this out I grew angry and had to stop myself from snarling at Naruto in the process but my facial muscles twitched.


    "Naruto I need you to listen very closely to me, regardless of what Mizuki said DON''T steal that scroll. I can''t exin it right now but I need to report this to the Hokage immediately, stay here until I get back." I said sternly and but Naruto and Teuchi realized that something was wrong but chose to listen to what I said.


    I flickered away and cloaked myself in natural energy while moving through the shadows using my cats ability to prevent anyone noticing my approach to the Hokage building. The old man was sitting behind his desk and tensed when I stepped out of the shadows of his office and four Anbu in animal masks had kunai to my throat in the blink of an eye. I ignored that though and made eye contact with the old man.


    "Release him, he seems to have an urgent report given his expression." he said and the kunai at my throat were withdrawn.


    "I have solid reason to believe that academy instructor Mizuki has chosen to betray Konoha." I said seriously and the old man had a stern expression.


    "That is a serious usation so I hope you have some form of evidence to back it up for your sake." he said seriously and I nodded before exining what Naruto told me and what I figured out on my own.


    "If what you have said is true then there truly is a high chance that he has indeed chosen to betray Konoha. But in order to be absolutely certain we will have Naruto go through with the theft though obviously with a fake scroll of course and if Mizuki truly is a traitor i trust that you are capable of detaining him?" the Hokage said seriously and I red my chakra causing the room to shake.


    "He won''t even be able to resist." I said firmly.


    "Very well, Owl, Fox shadow Naruto to ensure his safety while Kenzo handles Mizuki." the old manmanded.


    ""Yes lord Hokage!"" two of the anbu that had masks matching their chosen animal names said simultaneously.


    The old man then nodded at me firmly and all three of us slipped into the shadows of the room and snuck out of the building. I separated from the other two and snug back into Ichiraku where Naruto and Teuchi were waiting nervously.


    "Naruto, I have spoken with Lord Hokage and it has been decided that you will move to take the scroll as instructed before meeting up with Mizuki. It was just a false rm on my part sorry about that." I said with a fake smile since this n likely wouldn''t work if Naruto acted suspiciously.


    They both sighed in relief "That''s a relief, you had us worried sick this whole time." Teuchi said relieved.


    "Yeah sorry about that, I just thought it was suspicious since I myself didn''t have any test simr to this but the Lord Hokage assured me to I was just the exception rather than the rule." I lied with a heavy heart and they both bought it easily.


    "In that case lets celebrate Narutos sess early with ramen on the house!" Teuchi said with a wide smile and Naruto fist punched the air excitedly.


    Despite how much it pained me to have to lie to Naruto like this and betray his trust in me I knew that this was for his own good in the end. If I had to carry this sin to remove this threat to him I''d dly do so. I''d of course apologize profusely afterwards but I would also understand if Naruto wanted nothing to do with me after this betrayal. With this on my mind I feigned enjoyment as I celebrated with these two but it was hollow and even the usually spectacr ramen had no taste to me.-


    Finally the time came and Naruto left on his "mission" and the game was afoot. I and the two Anbu shadowed him secretly as he made his way to the Hokage building and Naruto stole arge scroll without a hitch. I felt the Hokages gaze on me but ignored it as it was to be expected given the nature of the situation. Mizuki had apparently set the meeting ce for Naruto to drop off the scroll as one of the empty forest styled training grounds known as training ground thirteen. It was located near the edge of the vige which made sense considering Mizuki was likely nning to flee with the scroll.-


    My heart ached as Naruto naively strolled right into the training ground and waited for Mizuki to show up while mischievously taking a peek of the contents of the scroll. To my surprise it appeared to actually house the multishadow clone jutsu at the start which Naruto eagerly went to try and learn. When Mizuki showed up and arrogantly began his monologue I started making my way to him stealthily while suppressing my shock at the revtions he was spewing to mock Naruto as a fool.

 Bad night

    Bad night


    I knew that Naruto had something inside him that messed with his chakra control but not in my wildest dreams did I think it was the demon fox that attacked Konoha over a decade ago. I suppose it made sense to a degree as Naruto was very close in age to the day the monster hadid the vige low. But it was clear to me that Mizuki was spewing bullshit however when he was saying that Naruto himself WAS the demon fox. If anything I''d say it was more like he was the prison holding the monster more than anything which also exined why it messed with his chakra control.-


    The monster must hate Naruto with a passion like no other and wanted nothing more than to see him suffer.


    "Do you really think Kenzo would be friends with you if he truly knew that you are the reason his parents died!?" Mizuki said taking sick pleasure out of watching Naruto question everything in despair.


    "I think I have heard more than enough out of you." I said as I walked out of the shadows.


    I wasn''t mad at the man, no I was<em>SEETHING</em> in rage. I was annoyed that he wanted to set up Naruto before he went traitor but after listening to him I had skipped mad entirely. Naruto was easily one of the nicest people I knew, bar none, and my best friend to boot. The mere implication I would think less of him due to something so obviously beyond his control rubbed me in all the wrong ways.


    "Kenzo!? Damn it I refuse to be caught!" Mizuki eximed in shock and anger at the sight of me.


    Immediately dark marks began to cover his body and his form began to balloon and his chakra grow. The final result was his body taking on traits of a tiger and his strength soaring.


    "Behold the power Lord Orochimaru has given me! Not even a genius like you can stop me now!" Mizuki roared and charged me with wed hands outstretched.


    I watched coldly and didn''t react until he got near me and simply shot out my palm to his chest. Compared to my sensei or even Shizune his new speed was sorelycking and I doubted he could match me for strength either.


    "BOOM!"


    All of his momentum was killed on contact with my open palm and instead he wasunched backwards at high speeds crashing through no less than four trees before finally stopping. I flickered over to him and was surprised to see that he was still breathing after a hit like that since I was certain i felt his ribs break.


    "It''s over Mizuki, you can''t win." I said coldly before disabling his limbs and knocking him out which caused whatever he did to transform to end.


    I checked his vitals to make sure he would survive and scoffed at what I found. That short burst of speed and power came at the cost of a serious amount of his life force. Regardless of what was done to him from now on he wouldn''t live more than two years. Whatever Orochimaru gave him basically condemned him to death the moment he chose to use it.


    ''What a fool.'' I thought in disdain before dragging his body back to Naruto.


    The blond refused to look at me and I sighed and simply wrapped my arms around him.


    "I heard all of what he said but he''s wrong you know? You are Naruto Uzumaki, a brat that causes pranks and is the nicest guy I know and that''s all I have ever known you as, this changes nothing." I said softly and he just cried while holding me tightly.


    We just sat there for a few moments as I let him get it all out of his system before I made a motion with my hand to the Anbu to take Mizuki. They showed up for no more than an instant to grab the guy and vanish like they weren''t there to begin with. After that I got Naruto back to his house and and into bed as he was exhausted mentally at this point.-


    The Hokage was waiting for me in his office and motioned for me to take a seat when I eventually arrived.


    "How is he?" he asked softly.


    "He isn''t hurt physically but mentally, well that''s another matter. I did what I could to reassure him that everything was going to be fine but that news wasn''t an easy thing to shrug off even for someone like him." I said honestly.


    He sighed "I suppose it was bound to happen eventually but I had hoped to break the news more gently. Owl and Fox have already debriefed me on what happened and I can''t apologize enough for forcing you to have to deceive to Naruto like that." he said with a sincere tone.


    "It was necessary to keep Mizuki from getting suspicious and fleeing outright. That sin belongs to me alone." I said firmly.


    He looked slightly older in this moment "I understand, now I need your report on this matter as well so that we can put this unpleasant business behind us." he said calmly.


    "Well I doubt I need to exin the brief moment ofbat to you as the other two no doubt have covered it in detail. The only thing I suppose that may need to be added is that you may as well execute Mizuki rather than throw him into the prison. Whatever Orochimaru gave him to have that boost of power came at the cost of the vast majority of his lifeforce, he won''t live longer than two years and that''s with round the clock care. The ironic part is the idiot actually thought what he was given was a gift." I said with a shake of my head.


    "I will have another iryonin look into this for the records but I trust your judgement since I know how skilled you are in medical arts from Tsunade. I''ll ce this matter under your file as a B rank mission and the subsequent points will be ced in your ount. You are dismissed." he said and I left without a word.


    I headed back to my home but didn''t get any sleep as my head was simply too noisy this night. The next day Naruto acted like nothing happened but I could tell he was still bothered by the previous nights events. The teams were assigned and I was surprised to see that he was on a team with Sasuke and Sakura that was led by Hatake Kakashi.


    Sasuke being under the man I could understand as he was the only non-Uchiha to have mastered the sharingan dojutsu. But, and I was trying to be fair here, the man was a mess. He was lethargic and seemed to suck as a teacher. His test for the squad was basically just a teamwork exorcise that they passed easily enough but after that I hadn''t seen him teach them anything even a week after being in charge of the team. No body training, jutsu handing out , nothing at all and it was getting hard to sit back and not take matters into my own hands.

 Confrontation

    Confrontation


    Instead all the man did was have the three running D rank missions that weren''t even good at teaching them anything useful. I had a clone watching all this unfold and after a week of it I was officially fed up. My sensei was pretty hands off with her teaching but even she wasn''t this bad as she at least gave me pointers and books to self study on before she tested me. The worse part though had to be the fact that Kakashi was reading smut almost all the time.-


    One day when the man was on the way home I confronted him about his teaching methods.


    "Do you just not want to be a sensei or are you literally this bad at it?" I asked bluntly clearly catching him off guard.


    "You must be the one who has been spying on my squad then, I suppose I shouldn''t be surprised. Genius or not though I doubt you understand what being a sensei requires." the man said calmly.


    "I know it requires actually trying to teach your students, I know that it requires more than just having your nose in smut while theyplete meaningless D rank missions. And don''t give me that nonsense about using it to temper their minds or some other ridiculousness. In the entire time I have watched your squad your role could be entirely summarized with a single word, dispassionate. So I ask again are you just this bad at it or did you not want it to begin with?" I said sternly.


    "If i''m doing such a bad job then why don''t you do it then?" the man shot back with an edge that proved I had touched on at least one sore point.


    "You haven''t been paying attention it seems, I DID teach Naruto personally. Do you have any idea how bad his fundamentals would be without me guiding him as we grew up? He could barely read and write when I first started yet now he can easilyplete paperwork, his chakra control is very good, his taijutsu gives even the n bratspetition and he even learned how to create and utilize chakra threads. That was all because of his hard work and the fact I gave enough of a shit to actually try and help him improve , to be better. You though, his "sensei" what have you done with the time you had besides waste all of theirs?" I spat angrily before flickering away.


    I said my piece and if Kakashi didn''t change anything I was going to bring up this matter with the Hokage and should that prove ineffective I''d teach Naruto on my own. I couldn''t care less about Sasuke or Sakura as I wasn''t friends with either of them but I refused to have Narutos future ruined by a bad teacher. Thankfully my confrontation with Kakashi had motivated him to actually teach for once and he tried showing them the tree walking and water water chakra control trainings.-


    The clear look of irritation on the mans face when Naruto t out told him that he already learned them from me and even more advanced methods as well was pure gold. Sasuke though seemed to be getting more and more angry the more Naruto showed off the stuff I taught him. It wasn''t hard to figure out why either as he had this whole superiorityplex that made him think he was better than Naruto and the more Naruto showed the clearer it became that that was wrong.-


    He wasn''t better than Naruto, he just had different strengths. Out of all of them though the one that simply tried her best was Sakura. She didn''t have the talent or innate gifts that either of her squadmates did but she was hardworking in an attempt to keep up. In my opinion her biggest issue was her attachment to Sasuke and her inability to stand up to him. She was a pure fangirl and it showed as she just went along with whatever the dude said even if the other options were better. It was interesting to see Kakashi adapt over the next week to each of his students unique personalities and talents.-


    For Naruto he taught him a few lower rank wind jutsus after testing his affinities. For Sasuke and Sakura he taught Lightning and water jutsus respectively. They all got taijutsu training and all still had to do D rank missions but at least they were actually learning something now so I was satisfied. I wasn''t just wasting my time either during this period but was training in higher rank jutsu with my main body. Having my attention split in two parts made it a bit slower than normal but I wasn''t bothered by it since it also let me umte money and points by having my clone working missions.


    This was the biggest benefit of my mitosis clone technique as I could effectively be doing two different things at once in two different locations. I had a few dozen shinobie to me to learn the technique confidently but after they all failed my tests to determine if they could safely learn it that had stopped happening. More than a few even tried to say that it was impossible to pass the tests and I was just making things hard on them until I personallypleted each and every test I had in front of them.-


    That wasn''t to say that there hadn''t been a couple of people who got close though as there were. One of them was a member of the Hyuga branch n that had specialized in iryonin jutsu named Take Hyuga. The second was a civilian iryonin who I was certain was holding back a lot named Kabuto Yakushi. The first was a jonin and proud of it but the second was merely a genin that worked in the Konoha hospital.-


    He certainly didn''t FEEL like a genin though, no all of my senses told me he was easily a jonin level shinobi and not a weak one. The reason he came to try and learn my techniques was "curiosity" ording to him but all of his responses and actions spoke volumes of how untrue that was. The reason I can confidently say this was that when he attempted my tests I could very easily sense him underutilizing his chakra and skill. Small muscture twitches that spoke of high level reflexes, chakra control failures that were too organized and a bunch of other hard to notices signs that he wasn''t what he said.-


    Still in the end he failed regardless and at one point even seemed to get genuinely frustrated with the tests after trying repeatedly over the course of a month with a day or two break between attempts. Finally I had enough and kicked him out for wasting both of our time which he stoppeding back after. That wasn''t to say that was thest I saw of the man though as he regrly was around when I or my clone was at the hospital.

 Snake sannin

    Snake sannin


    (Orochimaru pov)


    After I was effectively chased out of the hidden leaf I was furious. How could I not be? Over the course of two great wars and many more battles I had bled and killed for the vige loyally and I was passed up for Hokage by a brat I had watched grow up. Then they dared use me of being a traitor and scum for using the dregs of the vige in my experiments. My sensei was easily the worst though as he didn''t even have the heart to kill me himself and let me go, he''de to regret that.-


    Thankfully I had the foresight to prepare in case something like this happened and had a base squirreled away in thend of rice. Annoyingly my other bases had been systematically exposed by that fool Jiraiya who was insistent on capturing me. The loss of them stung but was something I could ept as money was easy to acquire for me. A few years went by and my experiments had allowed me to discover a way to extend my life indefinitely. I had taken inspiration from the forbidden jutsu [Impure world reincarnation] to create a way for me to take possession of someone elses body by using my soul.-


    There was a slight downside in the form of myself now being uniquely vulnerable to genjutsu but I had a n to rectify this problem as well. Originally I was going to kidnap some random Uchiha to possess but after the massacre they were in short supply. Still though both of the options left were tantalizingly talented and one even had the legendary Mangekyou sharingan, the same eyes supposedly as Madara himself! I even subordinated myself to the rogue organization Akatsuki in an attempt to possess Itachi but he overpowered me easily with his powerful genjutsu.-


    With that option effectively cut off from me I instead turned my attention back to Konoha were thest Uchiha in the vige remained, Sasuke. That was not the only child in that vige that interested me however as there was another that would have been my perfect vessel due to his talent in any other circumstance, Kenzo Mizuyama. The boy was a prodigy easily on par with myself or even greater from what my subordinate in the leaf told me. A strange unexinablemand over animals, a supremely durable body with extraordinary strength and flexibility.-


    Godly chakra control and intelligence, it was all the things I could have possibly asked for in a host with the single exception that the boys body didn''t have a whiff of any bloodline at all. All of these gifts were there innately without any exinable reason and as a scientist this bothered me greatly. Oh how I wanted nothing more than to snatch up the boy and disected him to learn all of his bodies secrets. That would be wasteful however and I was many things but that was not one of them.-


    Instead I left the child to his own devices until I could discover a way to fuse a bloodline into his body safely. I had samples of a vast variety of bloodlines that I had collected during these years that I wanted to create the perfectbination of to create a vessel truly able to achieve my ambition of mastering every jutsu and living forever. Uchiha Sasuke would be a temporary vessel until I seeded in transforming Kenzo Mizuyamas body into the perfect vessel. The sharingan were peerless dojutsu without a doubt but if I seeded in fusing the bloodlines I had chosen and merging the result into the boys body I could have it and so much more.-


    Time has passed since I left the Akatsuki and set my sights on the youth of Konoha and I had a few things to note during this period. First was that I had heavily underestimated the difficulty of fusing bloodlines together much less merging them into another''s body sessfully. I had been attempting to fuse the genes of the dojutsu ns of the world that I had samples from together with mixed results despite their shared ancestry.-


    Yes that had been quite the surprise for me to identally discover, somewhere in the far flung past each and every n with a dojutsu had a single ancestor that gave them their visual prowess. The fragments of that ancestors gics were far too hazy after all this time for me to sequence unfortunately but it gave me a point that I could use to initiate fusion between each of these branches of this distantly rted family tree.The Uchiha, Chinoike and Hyuga ns gics unfortunately all shared a trait, they were all dominant.-


    If one were recessive i could probably use that to fuse them together slowly but as they were all dominant any attempt at fusion tended to result in gic shes that served no purpose beyond crippling or killing the host I injected with them. Even when I tried to cultivate a gic clone the result was always malformed , typically around the eyes i noted, or unviable. Fusing a single bloodline into a non-bloodline host was possible however as I had even sessfully awakened a sharingan in one of my subjects who underwent the experiment. Though It should be noted that the eye was blue rather than red when activated due to a mutation in the process.-


    My attempts to fuse the Chinoike and Hyuga bloodlines into hosts yielded simr results in the cases that seeded. For the Chinoike ns Ketsuryugan the normally red eyes with purple horizontal goat like pupils were instead blue with red pupils. The Byakugan of the Hyuga n were instead ck as if the pupiless eyes had suddenly be nothing but pupil with no iris at all. The prowess each of these proto-dojutsu was less impressive than the normal thing however which was uneptable and as such I refused to make more such shinobi.-


    I was still determined to fuse these dojutsu bloodlines together but I had that relegated to a side project since it was clear it would take some time to make progress. Moving on I found that I had also underestimated the boys talent as my sensei had ced the child under my old teammate to learn, Oh did he learn. My spies reported extraordinary growth in the boy as he rapidly mastered iryonin jutsu and refined his own self created taijutsu under my old teammate. With little more than a year the boy even managed to create a solid clone technique that had me salivating.-


    I took great pleasure in knowing that the boy refused to simply hand it over to my sensei. The boy instead merely wrote down the requirements to learn the technique and the risks involved in attempting to. I admit that even I was leery of learning the technique after reading what was written from one of my spies in the vige. The price for failure was high, VERY high. The technique also had clear ws that greatly lessened my desire to learn it as splitting my focus in such a way was likely to ruin much work rather than help.

 Snake sannin(2)

    Snake sannin(2)


    (Orochimaru pov)


    Despite the ws it possessed I was perfectly aware that in the hands of a skilled iryonin the technique truly shown but it had uses in other fields as well that the boy seemed to overlook. For example alchemists would likely get a vast amount of use from the technique as they could prepare herbs and medicines methodically that you would normally need days to weeks to prepare as a single person in half or less than that amount of time. Other production type upations would also be allowed to ramp up drastically with this technique.-


    The boy was correct in his exnation of the techniques uselessness inbat though as all the technique would aplish in that situation was to make more inferior shinobi. If a problem required numbers rather than power that would be fine but history has proven that power trumps numbers in almost all regards. What I wanted the technique for however was it''s potential use in fuinjutsu. The biggest w in the sealing arts was the strain and requirements that a single seal master had to deal with when using powerful seals.-


    It drained ones chakra and if you wanted your seals to cover arge area you needed either time , help or massive chakra reserves. This technique however allows a seal master to effectively be two or more people with identical chakra signatures and amounts all perfectly in sync. All the downsides of the technique were worth risking in the face of this massive amount of utility. I had my best subordinate in the vige, Kabuto attempting to learn the technique as well as sway the boy towards joining me. It was surprisingly not going very well. All the information I had on the boy painted him as nearly identical to myself mentally speaking.-


    Yet he was spurning the subtle maniptions Kabuto was using that a younger me would have definitely taken. I couldn''t understand where the issue lied as I was so certain this would work. It was possible that the fault may lie with the boys senses as Kabuto had reported that the boy was suspicious of him. Maniptions do tend to fail when one knows that they are being manipted after all. This left me in a rather tight spot as on one hand Kabuto was the best option for this and on the other his chance of sess is innatelypromised if they boy was suspicious of him.-


    I could only trust Kabuto to do his best while fully expecting failure but I always had back up ns. I had thought about attempting to have one of my younger subordinates try and seduce the boy but reports were clear that he cared little for the opposite sex''s attention. I also couldn''t target the boys rtives or friends to manipte him either as the moment I even contemted it my instincts warned me against it heavily which was a surprise in and of itself.-


    I had fought a great many powerful enemies in my life and the times my instincts have warned me like this are few and far between but each and every time was for good reason. Thest time this had happened was when I had contemted snatching Pains eyes out of his head and the danger I felt in that instant was suffocating. This made me curious as to why my instincts would warn me against taking action against those close to the boy and I nudged that fool Mizuki into acting against the Jinchuriki of the nine tails.-


    The results spoke for themselves as the fool suffered a humiliating and overwhelming defeat under the boys hands despite activating the wed curse mark I had given him. I decided to reevaluate the boy at that point as I had clearly underestimated his strength. My desire to possess his body only increased however as the more he improved the better for when I eventually had that body for myself. With this in mind I redoubled my efforts on fusing the dojutsu bloodlines together while cultivating arge amount of the first Hokages cells to be fused with the final perfected result. Just imagining the final fusion in the boys body filled me with excitement and I went back to work.-


    (Normal pov)


    Kabuto had proven my suspicions correct when he had started subtly feeding me advanced knowledge and sly hints of offering more. No one without a high degree of skill would even know what he was referencing in most cases and that meant he was hiding for some reason and I doubted it was for the viges sake. It was clear to me however that he DEFINITELY didn''t have my best interests in mind and that was reason enough for me to ignore him entirely.-


    Time passed and soon three months came and went with a few things changing during this period. Kakashi had finally taken his team on a C ranked mission that went well. It was a simple bandit extermination mission so obviously the team did well and returned without a scratch. Naruto bragged about it for days before I had subtly passed a message to Kakashi that he wasn''t training his squad hard enough if they still had so much energy. It was a mean prank to pull but it was all for their benefit even if they didn''t think so.-


    Kakashi had basically just started holding joint training exercises with his self proimed rival, Might Guy''s squad that consisted of Neji, Rock Lee and Tenten. That squad was interesting as forck of a better description it was purely physical force rted, no ninjutsu at all. Neji was a Hyuga and as such was specialized in gentle fist. Rock Lee was learning Guy''s own strong fist style taijutsu and Tenten was a weapons specialist. This was an unusual squad formation but one I wholeheartedly approved of as each member covered a point the otherscked in.-


    Rock Lee was a heavy hitter, Neji could defuse ninjutsu and scout ahead and Tenten was a ranged threat with her many projectile weapons. In a weirdly effective way they covered the tank, attacker and ranger roles perfectly and onlycked a healer to be a near perfect unit. Might Guy as a sensei was terrible at teaching ninjutsu but was excellent at training physical prowess which Kakashi was taking advantage of. It was a bitzy of him to just co opt Guy''s training with his squad but it was good training so I wasn''t really bothered by it.-


    I myself had been working on mastering B rank jutsu of each of the elements while I kept an ear out for any word of powerful chakra beasts I could snatch. So far I had mastered one water jutsu and one fire jutsu at the B rank and was currently working on an earth jutsu which was also nearingpletion. In addition I was spending a good deal of time working on trying to create a new chakra technique that expanded on my chakra flow, chakrayering and chakra phantom techniques to create solid constructs of pure chakra.

 Chakra armor

    Chakra armor


    It was my hope that with all of these techniques I could attempt to make an imitation of something I had read about in the history books but only a single n was ever known to have pulled off, Susanoo. Labeled "the ultimate defense" an uchiha with some evolution to their eyes known as a Mangekyou sharingan could create a solid chakra projection that was said to be extremely durable. I could care less about the durability though as what I wanted to do was hopefully create a solid projection in the shape of my beasts.-


    Imitating them with my taijutsu and abilities was all well and good but if I seeded I could go even further and truly mimic them perfectly. ording to my theories I had everything I needed to make this technique as I had shape transformation, emission and solidification thanks to all of these chakra techniques I had. Practical testing however was less than ideal in oues. My first attempt ended with me losing the topyer of my skin on my right arm in a violent bacsh of chakra. It was a gruesome sight and hurt like hell to boot.-


    Admittedly I had gotten rather ahead of my self and tried to directly create a chakra projection around my arm but the chakra got out of hand and well the results spoke for themselves. As it turned out my chakra techniques didn''t want to fuse like I had hoped and instead violently shed. I contained my eagerness and decided to take this matter slowly and in a step by step manner after that. I started with chakrayering as that was how I solidified my chakra and the sh there was between it and chakra flow.-


    See the way I created the solidification was by creating fouryers of chakra all crushed together into a single denseyer. Technically this could be considered an entirely new chakra technique as I could make what was effectively hard light constructs this way. I didn''t count it as one though as it really was just the same thing taken to an extreme. Anyways the issue between this solidification and chakra flow was that they kinda countered each other. Solidification was absolute stillness and flow was absolute movement. It was a standard immovable object versus unstoppable force type deal the answer to which was both getting destroyed.-


    The issue I was having was that I needed the chakra to be both solid and able to freely move in order to pull off the projection like I wanted. You may be wondering why I was trying to do this when my [sage art: malefic destroyer] jutsu aplished something like what I wanted. The truth of the matter was that unlike pure chakra that didn''t have any weaknesses that jutsu had a VERY big one, water. The conversion of chakra to a physical substance like that toxin may give it the ability to form solid shapes but it also introduced material ws to the technique that a single bad matchup would ruin.-


    In that jutsus case the toxin was able to be dispersed using water release jutsu. What I wanted instead was a technique that would allow me to create solid objects out of neutral chakra and thus not have any material weaknesses. It was extremely ambitious and I knew it so I wasn''t surprised at how difficult it was to pull off. The next big issue I had to deal with was the sh between emission and solidification. Emissions biggest w was that I wasn''t a Hyuga and as such had trouble sending chakra out of every chakra point in my body at the same time.-


    Don''t get me wrong I COULD do it but it wasn''t smooth and even like with the Hyuga. A little context that you need to understand was that for nearly all humans there existed three hundred and sixty one pressure points along the chakra system that chakra could in theory be emitted from. Most shinobi only emit chakra from their hands and feet however as that was what was needed to utilize jutsu but by no means were they unable to emit it from other ces merely they needed to practice to do so.-


    The Hyuga n however were naturally able to emit chakra from any pressure point freely without any training. I on the other hand had ironically enough trained myself to do the same with my leaf sticking chakra control exercises by cing leaves and stones all over my body. As a result I could barely match the natural ability of a Hyuga n member in this regard, a fact I can assure you impressed them to no end.-


    This ability to emit chakra from ones whole body was key to the projection if my theory was correct as it allowed the person creating the projection to fully fuel and control it. It was a bit like when a knight put on a set of te mail that covered every inch of them. Much like the issue with solidification and flow, solidification and emission didn''t work all that well together. Thankfully this was merely a bncing issue rather than an opposing nature one. Basically no matter how good my control was there was always a constant loss of chakra when I solidified the stuff, slow but there none the less.-


    The bncing issue I am talking about was that I had to figure out how much chakra to emit to keep up the solid construct without creating pressure underneath the solid stuff from excess chakra building up. This was not particrly hard to figure out and as a result I could create a solid chakra structure around me that was stupidly sturdy but entirely immobile unfortunately. I also needed to really work on my shaping of the solid chakra as I could make vague shapes but detailed images eluded me even after two months of effort.-


    To be fair though I wasn''t focusing all my time and attention on this one project and was also working on ninjutsu, missions and hanging out with Naruto when he was free to do so. Speaking of my favorite foxy blonde(pun intended) he had been growing quite well now that Kakashi was actually trying to teach his squad. Lets be honest right now the man was probably only doing it to prove me wrong but I don''t care about motivation in this scenario, just the results. And all the results said that once he stopped wasting time he was a pretty good sensei.-


    He also must not have been a terrible person either since besidesining about how hard the training is Naruto hasn''t mentioned anything negative about the man. It might not seem like it but Naruto is a pretty fair person when ites to discerning decent people. Loathe as I am to admit it Naruto couldn''t really ask for a better sensei just starting out from the academy. Kakashi was surprisingly good at figuring out how Narutos rather "unique" talents manifested themselves and capitalizing on them to help him grow.

 The bridge event

    The bridge event


    About three months after Naruto had graduated and started learning from Kakashi he took a mission out of thend of fire for the first time.


    "You got all the stuff I told you to get?" I asked as we headed to the vige gates with him on the day he was set to head out.


    "Yeah I got it all, don''t know why I''d need any of it though since we''re just escorting this rude old guy to his home." Naruto said with a bit ofint.


    "It''s not about whether or not the mission calls for it but rather if something unexpected happens you''d be better prepared. Like what if you came across a missing nin or something and you guys got injured? A medical kit woulde in pretty damn handy then wouldn''t it?" I asked and he begrudgingly admitted I had a point.


    That wasn''t the only thing I had him pack though as I made sure he brought soldier pills, explosive tags and plenty of shuriken and kunai. In addition I even gave him a type of medicine that I created during my time with my sensei that was basically a soldier pill but worked but overdrawing ones resources for a short boost of power. The downside though was that after it wore off you''d get put out ofmission for at least two weeks.-


    It was ast resort type deal and I made sure that he knew it when I gave it to him while also making it clear that under NO circumstances was Kakashi to eat it as that would leave the three genin highly vulnerable. Their sensei was the only Jonin level threat in their squad so if he gets put out ofmission like that it was on the genin to get home safely which was harder than you may think with the constant secret squads from other viges that go through thend of fire.-


    Missing nin were also a big problem as due to the bounties on their heads they rarely settled in a single ce and instead wandered thend in an unpredictably manner. My concern about them encountering one on this seemingly easy mission was as a result rooted in actual past events that urred simrly. I wasn''t sure why but something told me that this mission wouldn''t be so simple for their squad and this was the best I could do to help make it easier on them.-


    (Third person pov squad seven)


    At the gate to the vige an old man with a grumpy look was waiting along side a man with silver hair and most of his face covered and two children. This was of course Kakashi and two of his three genin, Sasuke and Sakura. They were waiting for thest member of the squad to arrive as he waste by a few minutes.


    "Sorry I''mte! Kenzo kept me back to make sure I packed all the stuff he told me to!" a blonde haired boy yelled as he ran up to the group.


    "Being prepared is an important part of being a shinobi but so is being on time, remember to leave early from now on Naruto." Kakashi said calmly and Naruto nodded.


    "If we are done wasting time lets get a move on already." the old man said grouchily.


    With that the group officially set off towards the edge of thend of fire and thend of waves. At first everything seemed normal as they traveled along the road but soon enough after they got about halfway to their destination they were ambushed. The ambushers were low level genin from the hidden mist that were hiding in puddles at the side of the road.-


    "I think it''s time you exin why a C rank escort mission has shinobiing after you don''t you?" Kakashi confronted the old man sternly.


    "Please you have to understand! I am not a wealthy man and B rank or higher missions are too expensive for me to afford so I may have left out some details in order to get the help of shinobi! I didn''t mean any harm but that bastard Gato has thend of waves in a chokehold and now he is trying to prevent us from building a bridge that would break his hold on thend." the old man said ashamed but sincerely.-


    "Who is this Gato guy and why would he try to kill you?" Naruto asked confused.


    "Gato is the founder of the Gato tradingpany that he has used to take control of the economy of thend of waves by cutting off our ess to the rest of the world. However is secretly a drug peddler and smuggler with no moral bottom line so long as he gets more money. My vige which is located at the edge of thend of Fire and thend of waves decided to try and build a bridge to break his hold. Gato has sent people to harass us every step of the way but now that the bridge is almost finished he is desperate to stop this threat to his control. He is likely hiring shinobi to kill me and my family in a final bid to stop us. We had expected this however which was why I went to the hidden leaf to hire shinobi of my own to protect us." the old man said seriously.


    There was a discussion between the squad about what should be done and the majority voted that they should still try and help the old man since there was no telling if Gato may try and extend his greed to thend of fire as well. After that the old man was markedly nicer to the squad as they traveled. Two dayster a thick mist rolled over the group and Kakashi got into a fight with a missing nin that Naruto recognized as someone Kenzo had spoke of, Zabuza Momochi!-


    The attack started with the massive de flying at the bridge builder and getting repelled by Kakashi. Zabuza created a thick mist to cover the area while Kakashi opened his sharingan. What followed was a masterful game of deception and countering as Zabuza sent two water clones to attack the bridge builder while Kakashi countered the mist and then the attack on the bridge builder. At one point Kakashi got caught in a water prison jutsu that kept Zabuza in ce while a water clone was sent to fight the genins.-


    Naruto proved the deciding factor there as he created many shadow clones that all distracted the water clone while the real one transformed himself into a Fuma shuriken to be thrown by Sasuke. The real Zabuza easily dodged the shuriken but was forced to release Kakashi after it transformed back into Naruto who threw a kunai at him while he was in mid air. Kakashi then got into a jutsu battle with Zabuza where he would off bnce the man by copying everything he did including his speech. The battle ended however when a masked bounty hunter "killed" Zabuza and stole the corpse.

 The bridge event(2)

    The bridge event(2)


    "I believe Zabuza might still be alive." Kakashi said shortly after the masked person took Zabuza away.


    "What, how!?" Sakura eximed in disbelief.


    "While the senbon looked like a fatal blow it was far too much of a coincidence that that person just so happen to show up andnd the killing blow so easily. Not to mention they took the entire body rather than just the head which was needed to im the bounty. In addition the person didn''t allow us any time to make certain that Zabuza was truly dead." Kakashi exined seriously.


    "If this is true then that means Zabuza has a partner that didn''t participate in the attack on the bridge builder. Perhaps on Zabuza''s orders since the man seemed so confident in his sess." Sasuke said seriously and Kakashi nodded.


    "A good deduction that fits the situation perfectly. While it''s possible that we are wrong lets act as though we are correct for the next couple days until we reach the destination." Kakashi ordered and all the Genin nodded.


    Over the next few days the squad traveled and camped with their heads on a swivel at all times but no more attacks came until the arrived. The old man introduced the squad as the shinobi he hired to the vige and his family. Naruto pitched in with his shadow clones in the construction of the bridge while his main body alongside his squadmates were getting in some emergency training with Kakashi while they stayed in a state of alertness. During this time Naruto met a very feminine boy in the woods named Haku who was foraging at the time when he came across Naruto napping after training.-


    Something about the boys name tickled the back of Narutos mind but he couldn''t for the life of him figure out why. Due to this he left himself vulnerable around Haku when logically he shouldn''t have due to the fact they were technically enemies. Naruto quickly forgot about the meeting and didn''t report it to the rest of his squad. A couple days passed quietly and finally the bridge waspleted. On the final day though Zabuza appeared again without the reckless confidence he had previously. Instead he and Haku who was wearing a mask at the moment confronted Kakashi , Sasuke and Sakura who were on the bridge with the old man.-


    Naruto was in the forest at this time and thus was unaware of what was going on until he came across a boar that had been attacked and broken branches leading to the old mans house. Investigating he came to the house just in time to rescue the bridge builders family from some of Gatos men before rushing to help his squad after ensuring they were safe. In the meanwhile back on the bridge Haku and Sasuke were facing off while the Zabuza and Kakashi warily watched without interfering. Sakura was reduced to a spectator as the fight was too intense for her without risking injury.-


    Haku turned out to possess the ice release Kekkai Genkai and was pushing Sasuke hard with the wide range that this gave him with the fight being fairly one sided on Hakus end when Naruto finally showed up in a dramatic fashion. The battle split into two parts at this point however as Naruto charged into Hakus domain of ice mirrors getting trapped inside with Sasuke. Meanwhile Zabuza and Kakashi were starting their own serious battle as Zabuza intensified the mist around them until even he was blind to prevent Kakashi from utilizing his sharingan to it''s fullest.-


    Kakashi took damage defending the old man and Sakura while in the domain of ice mirrors Haku was causing more and more injuries to Naruto and Sasuke who kept trying to break out. Sasuke even awakened his sharingan in the heat of the moment at which point Haku decided enough was enough and used his senbon to attack Naruto which Sasuke was forced to block with his body. Naruto watched as Sasuke appeared to die and rage overcame him as his chakra surged and burned red like mes. It couldn''t be seen but the seals on his body containing the nine tailed fox slipped at this moment letting it''s influence out ever so slightly.-


    In this heightened state Naruto beat Haku out of the domain of ice while shattering the mask he wore. Seeing Hakus face was enough to shock Narutos mind out of his rage state and let him gain control over himself again. Meanwhile Kakashi''s fight with Zabuza was also wrapping up as Zabuza had both arms crippled by Kakashi''s summoned ninken after Kakashi used his own blood to mark Zabuza so that he could be tracked via scent.-


    Kakashi summoned his signature finishing move, the lightning cutter and in a split second the fight ended as Haku pushed Zabuza out of the way sacrificing himself to the unstoppable attack and perishing. The mist cleared and Gato appeared with dozens of mercenaries to clean up the tired ninjas and the bridge builder all for the same low price. This didn''t mean that the despicable man didn''t kick Hakus dead body and insult him and Zabuza confidently. Naruto called Zabuza out on his callus behavior and the man sacrificed himself to behead Gato with a kunai while getting stabbed by the mercenaries in a lethal manner.-


    With Gato dead the mercenaries scattered after being attacked by Narutos clones that outnumbered them. Sasuke as it turned out was still alive but was in bad shape as this event ended with the newly finished bridge being named after Naruto. Zabuza and Haku were buried in under the same tree as team seven made their way back to Konoha. The medical supplies Kenzo had Naruto pack turned out to be extremely useful in giving everyone field treatment that stabilized Sasukes condition until they reached Konoha. In a funny way Naruto had also totally forgotten about the enhancement medicine that Kenzo gave him which irritated the young sage to no end after hearing about how the mission went.-


    (Normal pov)


    As the best iryonin in the vige I was called to treat Sasuke due to the seriousness of his injuries. As the st" Uchiha Sasuke was extremely important to the vige and so got the best treatment. I wasn''t just bragging when I said I was the best iryonin in the vige as my sensei and Shizune were the best in the world and they told me themselves that I was onlycking in experience to match both of them.-


    Naturally this information was also publicly known since the people at the hospital had spread it out from me spending time there treating people. I insisted that I treat the entire squad however rather than just Sasuke which was approved and I chuckled at the ufortable look Kakashi had as I treated him and Naruto. The Jonin likely hadn''t ever expected that he would get put under my care and I made sure to lord it over him just to be petty.

 Bad habits and progress

    Bad habits and progress


    Sasuke was the worst off out of everyone in squad seven as this near death event had caused him to turn cold and distance himself from everyone. I didn''t even need to guess why he did this as he bluntly stated that he almost removed any chance of Itachi being brought to justice by him to save Naruto. ording to him he was "enlightened" to the fact that he was only going to be dragged down by friendship orradery and that all he needed was power. I shouldn''t need to exin how this was a VERY dangerous mindset for a shinobi to have.-


    Allies , friends and family were something that every shinobi needed or they run the risk of losing themselves to the darkness of this world. Orochimaru was one such person as he cast aside these connections in search of power and became a monster for it. Sasuke was treading dangerously close to this line and I made sure Kakashi and the Hokage knew it. While I hold no love for the brat as he is more an annoyance than anything for me that didn''t mean I was just going to sit back and let another Orochimaru type individual pop up if I could do something about it.-


    That said I was not responsible for him and told those that were so they could deal with it. I had my own things going on and was unwilling to simply waste my time babysitting Sasuke. Moving on from that I discovered that the "limitation" I had felt on Naruto after the third did something about the nine tails that was acting up within him had vanished. Oddly however the creature was not misbehaving despite this as Naruto could perform jutsu as per usual.-


    As a result I decided to leave the matter alone as it was not my business so long as Naruto was unaffected. I had taken to training him recently however as the report I got of the event told me how foolishly he had acted and I was going to beat that out of him before it became a bad habit. For starters he had tried to fight Zabuza Momochi of all people without any sort of n in mind. I was pretty sure that it was only thanks to him not being taken seriously that he had even managed to get one over on the guy.-


    Zabuza was easily just as strong if not stronger than most jonin in the vige and you mean to tell me a mere genin out skilled such a person, yeah right! He was merely lucky enough that Zabuza didn''t see him as worth paying close attention to that he pulled off what he did. The second big mistake Naruto made was that he fell for his enemies provocation and ran straight into a trap without hesitation. I was of course referring to the incident where he ran straight into Haku''s domain of ice mirrors AFTER he got Haku out of it.-


    Naruto himself even told me that he knew that attacking the construct of ice from both the inside and outside simultaneously was the best option. Despite that he ran right into it like an idiot which cost Sasuke and him a whole lot of unnecessary injuries as a result. These bad moves worked out in the end but were extremely bad habits to have and I was damned if I was just going to leave them unaddressed. I told Kakashi to screw off when he showed up to grab Naruto for a D rank mission.-


    I wasn''t going to let Naruto go back to that stuff until I felt confident that I had knocked somemon sense into his head. The way I aplished this was easy, I forced him to live in the forest of death for an entire two weeks with nothing on him but the clothes on his back. During that entire time I stationed a solid clone in the only way back to the vige so he had no choice but to adapt. He wasn''t really in danger since I had my beasts sneakily take out anything to strong for him out of that area but he still had to fight the beasts of the forest for resources.-


    As he quickly learned trading injuries and taking stupid risks was not in fact a viable method to fight. Obviously I stepped in whenever he was at risk of dying but otherwise he was left to fend for himself. You want to talk about a full transformation, the Naruto that walked out of the forest was a whole different one than the version that walked in two weeks prior. Against the much more experienced in battle beasts of the forest he had honed himself into abatant that didn''t fight like a fool just hoping for the best anymore.-


    Understandably he was also quite angry at me for putting him through that and nagged my ear off about all the times he was sure that he was done for. I was unapologetic however because it was for his own good. I had also during this time gotten a breakthrough in my chakra projection creation. I had figured out how to create a very small chakra projection that was barely more than a thin covering on my pointer finger. Despite this super sizing it was unfeasible at the moment as just this small projection depleted my chakra reserves at an rming rate.-


    In addition it tookser focus to maintain just a small projection like that so I could only imagine the horrible mental strain covering my whole body would cause. All that said it was clear to me however that the potential was there as using that small projection I could create a realistic w at the tip of my finger that slid through chakra metal like it was butter. I know this because I tested it against some after pestering the Hokage about it.-


    The look on his face when I told him about what I was trying to do was rather amusing as he looked like he had seen a ghost. Apparently he had thought that nobody remembered the Mangekyou sharingan and Susanoo. I t out told him when he asked that the stuff was recorded in some of the history books albeit vaguely in the public library and that it only took a little digging to find it. The old man made me swear to never tell anyone where I got the inspiration for what I was doing from but I didn''t see the issue considering the Uchiha n was all but extinct at this point.-


    When I asked him about his reasons for this secrecy all he said was that sometimes history was better forgotten. That was stupid in my opinion since without history to teach us what not to do we as humans tend to repeat our mistakes. Still I did as he wanted and swore not to spread my inspiration if it ever came up. I can''t say that I didn''t get anything out of it though as I got to test the projection on some chakra metal as well as get some pointers from someone who had actually seen a Susanoo before.

 Birthday

    Birthday


    Unfortunately these pointers were not as helpful as I would have liked as no one had apparently tried to figure out exactly how the Susanoo worked. ording to the old man everyone just epted it as a power belonging to the Mangekyou and moved on. Even the Uchiha themselves that had those eyes did this which irritated me to no end. Like I understood that it was something that could easily be taken for granted but it was so wasteful not to at least try and understand how your own power worked.-


    I had been a sage since the literal moment I was born and even now I was constantly experimenting with my power to understand it further. It showed too as I discovered so much about natural energy and sage chakra that I was willing to bet I was second to no other living person in my understanding of it in shinobi. For example the "boost" that all the historical documents state that sages got for training in it I knew was actually natural energy refining your body into it''s most perfect state.-


    Anyways the old mans pointers on Susanoo were little more than merely confirming what I had confirmed via trial and error. It had only been two months since Naruto had graduated from the academy at this point and he was another two months from his birthday on October tenth to turn thirteen My birthday was next month on September fifth so I was going to be turning thirteen myself at that time. I didn''t really n to celebrate my birthday though as it was just another day to me but Naruto and my parents insisted. -


    So while I spent this time working hard to improve my chakra projection and master the rest of the B rank jutsu I had they nned and prepared for my birthday until it finally arrived.


    "Ugh, I don''t know why I let you people convince me to do this." Iined as I sat in dunking booth that was tailor made with ninjas in mind.


    "Shut up and let me dunk you!" Tsunade yelled as she threw yet another ball that missed the erratic moving target.


    This was just one of the "fun" games set up for my birthday party in a training ground that my parents rented out for the day. The guest list for the party was also the sort of thing that would make most peoples jaws drop. Kakashi, Tsunade, Shizune, Hiruzen, Iruka, all my ssmates including those from major ns AND their parents, Teuchi and his daughter Ayame and finally Toge. While some people weren''t able to make it for whatever reason those that were here were important enough that my party may as well be a political function.-


    My sensei, the third Hokage, the head of the Hyuga n, Kakashi, the nine tails jinchuriki, the head of the Nara n, the head of the Yamanaka n, the head of the Akimichi n, important members of the Inuzuka n and some of my other ssmates and their parents. Sasuke refused toe and so did a few other inconsequential ssmates of mine and their parents but the party was still as strange event due to the important people that attended it. Admittedly some of those that came were only here to try andwork with me or my sensei but they were mostly in the minority. One such person was the head of the Hyuga n Hiashi, or Hinata''s father and Neji''s uncle. The man was ttering me and my sensei for our achievements since he got here.-


    The party had otherwise been mostly split into two parts really, one where the adults interacted freely and one where it was us children. I as the birthday boy was forced to y all sorts of self punishing games like the dunking booth, face painting, pie throwing, ninja tag which was a lot more violent than the normal sort and pin the tail on the donkey, I was the donkey. Okay so I may have enjoyed myself just a smidge but I still firmly believed I could have been using my time better.-


    The gift giving was my personal favorite part of the party though as per tradition I got a gift from my parents first followed by the Hokage and then my sensei before everyone else after that.


    "Your mother and I had to go all the way to thend of iron to get it but we hope it will serve to protect you in the years toe." my dad said with a smile as he and my mom handed me arge rectangr box wooden box with the emblem of a dragon w burned into the lid that was taller than I was and weighed quite a bit.


    Carefully lifting the lid and setting it aside I pulled the silk cover away revealing an intricately engraved dull grey metal staff with many stylized beasts all along it''s length.


    "Chakra metal!? This must have cost a fortune, I can''t ept this!" I said while hurriedly trying to give it back in a panic.


    They refused to take it however "It is a small price to see you kept safe and besides we thought that a staff suited you the most with how hermit like you act." My mother said with a smile but had a stern voice that brokered no argument.


    "I will make the world remember this staff, I swear it!" I said firmly and they just smiled in satisfaction before respectfully making way for the Hokage.


    "You getting invited was a formality you know? Nobody actually expected you to show up." I said calmly.


    "I almost didn''t in truth but my schedule just so happened to be open today so I figured why not? As far as gifts go I''m afraid my own is much more humblepared to your parents and I suspect my students as well." the old man said with a friendly smile as he pulled out a scroll from his robe and handed it to me.


    Opening the scroll I started reading the contents and my eyes bulged out of my sockets in shock. There on the scroll was a personal set of notes on chakra beasts and their abilities written by none other than the second Hokage, Tobirama Senju!


    ''Humble my foot!'' I thought "Surely you know how valuable this is not just to me but in general?" I asked in disbelief.


    He chuckled "I''m afraid that beyond the author of those notes the notes themselves hold very little value to anyone else besides you. You should understand that the study of the subject is not very popr and for good reason as it rarely has any use to most shinobi. Were he still alive I have no doubt that my sensei himself would have given these to you personally." he said with a smile before walking away to let my sensei step up.


    "My gift can''t really be considered one but I finally cracked the seal on that egg you gave me and put it in stasis in this scroll since it''s ready to hatch, you just have to release the stasis seal like normal to start the process." she said bluntly but I just smiled and thanked her sincerely since she wasn''t really the sappy sort.

 Birthday(2)

    Birthday(2)


    After thatthe gifts were more mundane things like tools, clothes, money or even food in Choji''s case. Naruto didn''t have a gift for me but that was mostly because I had told him not to get one. Unlike everyone else that was more or less financially stable my friend was still quite in the lurch in this regard. Between rent, food, utilities and ninja supplies Narutos budget was extremely tight with him barely being able to save a few ryo every month at most. Expecting him to get me a birthday gift was just needlessly harsh and so I t out told him not to worry about it.-


    Unlike if someone else were to tell him something like that where he would likely ignore it Naruto tended to listen to me since I knew what I was talking about most of the time. If I said he just didn''t need to bring a gift but simply be there then that''s what he''d do. Naturally he''d also not expect a gift on his uing birthday but there had literally not been a single year since we met that I haven''t gotten him something.-


    Unlike my birthday where there was always a party he had always kept his birthday celebration more quiet and low key. Not for ack of me trying otherwise mind you but it simply never went well due to the negative reputation he had attached to his name in the vige. I couldn''t do anything about that however as prejudice was not so easy to get rid of once it had taken root so deeply. Not impossible mind you just that Naruto himself needed to fix his reputation with his actions and no one else could do it for him.-


    That didn''t mean that I treated those who mistreated him positively either and my memory was long. This meant that if I happen to get such a person in the hospital for treatment I might "forget" to numb an area or directly fix the issue in the most painful but efficient way. For example a store owner who always overcharged Naruto hatefully came in with a dislocated shoulder after falling and I directly pulled and popped it back into ce before leaving him to yell in pain. I had been written up a few times because of this but since I did in fact still "help" the patient none of it stuck.-


    That didn''t mean that the head of the hospital and Hokage hadn''t given me a stern talking to about it that I promptly ignored. I lived by simple rules and one of those was that you didn''t mess with my people or you''d eventually find out that I was not the forgiving or forgetting sort. Depending on the situation I may not be able to do anything to you directly or even at that exact moment but at some point I''d act and you''d not enjoy it at all.-


    Anyways we ate and socialized a bit before the party finally came to an end and I had another month before I had to deal with anything simr again. I was admittedly rather eager to get home after the party cleanup was done because of my sensei''s gift. I knew that whatever came out of that egg was going to be powerful but exactly what was within the egg was beyond me. Judging from the shape of the egg I was certain that it was some sort of bird. But that didn''t exactly narrow things at all since with the entire thing being covered in gold and jewels I couldn''t identify the species based on appearances.-


    Even then this was a chakra beast egg so there was no telling how that affected the design the egg naturally had. When I got back to my home in the forest of death I drew the curtains and cleared a small area on the floor of everything before nervously taking the egg out of the scroll my sensei gave me. To my surprise there was no gold or jewels on the shell which told me that she had likely taken them as her own "payment" for undoing the seal. The egg itself was a vibrant blue with brown spots on it.-


    At the top of the egg was the release point for the seal that my sensei told me about and I ced my finger on it and injected a small amount of chakra which caused the seal keeping the egg in stasis to vanish with a hum.


    "Chee Chee!"


    Immediately sounds of the creature within stirring awake and bing active sounded out as the egg began to wobble slightly.


    ''She wasn''t joking when she said it was ready to hatch.'' I thought slightly surprised.


    I watched as the egg shell began to crack and bulge slightly as the creature within forced itself out of the egg. Soon enough a ke of the shell dropped off and I could see the wet tan colored body wiggling within the shell. Seeing as the creature needed no help really I just watched as it broke apart it''s calcium cage and revealed itself to the world. I had no idea what I was looking at to be honest with you. The chick had long gangly legs and a semi-long beak and neck but otherwise looked like a chicken chick as far as I knew.-


    I wasn''t surprised to see that the little thing had it''s eyes sealed shut as most if not all birds as far as I knew started out like that but it would soon open the things.


    "Chee! Chee!"


    The small creature chirped loudly until I carefully wrapped it in a loose warm towel in myp. I watched it for two hours and by the end of that time the chick had it''s eyes open and was looking around curiously while it''s wet feathers had fluffed up and dried. It honestly looked like a tan cotton ball with a long neck and legs attached, adorable.-


    What you couldn''t see however was the massive inferno of dense chakra within the chick that approached even my own reserves. Even worse was that the chick was just tantly releasing it''s chakra which caused the very air around us to feel heavy and howl from the pressure being exerted. There was a reason why powerful shinobi rarely red their chakras or let them run wild after all. In this case I wouldn''t be surprised to know that the sensor ninja in the vige were going nuts from this things chakra.-


    Helplessly I had to re my own chakra before repeatedly containing it again before the small bird started imitating me. It wasn''t so surprising really since as far as it was concerned I was it''s parent and so imitating me was the natural thing to do. In the morning I was called into the Hokages office to exin what happened and I introduced the little one to the Hokage with an amused look as the old man looked at the adorable fluffball in my vest breast pocket in horror.

 Small crane

    Small crane


    I knew exactly why he looked so horrified too since it had to do with one of the rules associated with chakra beasts. The rule basically went that the amount of chakra that a beast had was directly proportionate to it''s overall power. In other words the little ball of fluff in my pocket was going to be S rank at maturity at MINIMUM. Byparison that meant that the little one could square up with a Kage easily once it grew up. Naturally you can understand how terrifying that must seem for the old man.-


    Add on whatever ability the little fluffball had and I effectively had an army destroying level of power on my hands.


    "In any other circumstance I''d see the beast killed before it could mature into a threat to the vige like most other chakra beasts of simr levels of chakra. Fortunately the beast is imprinted onto you and with yourmand over beasts I need not worry about it rebelling and bing a problem. That leaves us with a more unique set of problems however as we need to discover the beasts talents, diet, abilities and species to maximize it''s training. I trust that you''lle to me for any needs you may have regarding this beast as I am willing to give you my full support in raising it since it has the potential to be a massive boon to the vige." the old man said seriously and I nodded.


    "First things first I need to know what this this even before I can ask for anything." I said honestly.


    "Indeed, I''ll speak with Tura Kazeyama about it as the Kazeyama family is the primary supplier of our message hawks and may know more about what species of bird that is. While I handle that why don''t you go an introduce the little one to the rest of the vige since it''s imperative that it befortable here?" the old man suggested and I agreed.


    I''ve never had an issue with any of my beasts misbehaving around the vige besides my cat that had a habit of stealing food but even in that case I was pretty sure it only did it for the fun of it since it only stole food from shinobi. There was something amusing about seeing a jonin chasing a cat after it stole a sandwich from them.-


    Despite this ster record of behavior I admit that this little one may prove to be an exception since it was bound to imitate me as it matured. I freely ept that I was not the best at behaving in public since I was fairly blunt in how I did things. I wasn''t the sort to just act nice when I disliked you and that gave me a bit of a reputation in the vige as being standoffish. There was nothing for it really as lots of the vige mistreated Naruto and I as a result didn''t like them.-


    Don''t get me wrong there were plenty of people who didn''t care either way about Naruto but most of those either didn''t experience loss from the nine tails or simply couldn''t bring themselves to hate a child. If I had to be entirely honest it was about thirty percent of the vige that were decent to Naruto, twenty percent that didn''t care either way and fifty percent that hated him or rather hated the nine tails and by extension him. Add on my personality and you can understand how I might be a bad example to follow half the time when I was in the vige proper.-


    Still that didn''t mean I couldn''t just ignore everyone I didn''t like and just stick to interacting with the people I liked. As I walked through the viges busy streets the little one curiously looked around with it''s head stuck out the top of the pocket which earned me more than a few strange looks. The women of the vige were practically trampling over each other to say hello to it though. Not that I could really me them since most woman had a soft spot for cute things and the little fluffball definitely counted.-


    Surprisingly the baby bird was perfectly well behaved and didn''t peck any of the women trying to pet it. That said it was rather timid and hid in my pocket fully shortly after the swarm of women started getting noisy. I couldn''t help but smile at this as it was truly adorable. Once it became clear that they weren''t going to get to pet it the swarm dispersed though they waited nearby to try and get a chance at loving on the bird. The little one stayed in the pocket though until I walked into Ichiraku ramen.-


    "Chee! Chee! Chee!"


    The bird chirped loudly once I got into the restaurant and drew Teuchi''s attention from behind the counter.


    "New beast Kenzo?" he asked with a raised eyebrow.


    "Yeah I hatched this little onest night but I haven''t fed it at all so it must be hungry." I said honestly as I reached into my pocket and removed the bird from it and set it on the counter.


    "A crane chick? Those aren''t thatmon in this part of thend of fire, a bit of crab aught to satisfy it''s hunger though." Teuchi said surprising me as he went to work retrieving some raw crab meat.


    "How''d you know it was a crane? I didn''t even know that." I asked curiously.


    "Oh that? Ayame used to be obsessed with the things when she was little. Must have drilled the information into my head a thousand times over from a book she had. Cranes are omnivores but have a particr favoritism for crab. It''s why the ramen bowl with crab is called the crane special." he said with a smile as he fed the little fluffball.


    "Huh? I must admit that out of everyone you weren''t even on my list of people to ask about this little one. Funny how that works isn''t it?" I asked and Teuchiughed.


    "That''s the way the world works Kenzo, you never can tell just where you may learn something new. A bit of advice about the little one here though. It will need a protein rich diet so lots of meat or insects and some vitamin rich veggies diced up would be for the best." Teuchi said before putting down a hot bowl of my usual on the counter.


    I must have cut an odd picture from the outside as I took a mouthful of my food while a crane chick sat on the counter next to me digging into a bowl of crab meat gluttonously. That was how the ninja the old man sent found me after all. I paid for the meal for both myself and the little one that got sleepy after eating and curled up in my pocket without any fuss before heading back to the Hokage building. The old man sighed when I t out told him that I found out what the little one was from Teuchi but took the news with an amused look in the end.

 Small crane(2)

    Small crane(2)


    Time passed after that and soon it was four weekster and Narutos birthday was rapidly approaching. During this month the little one had grown muchrger and had made an absolutely huge fan base in the vige as it couldn''t fit in my pocket and thus sat on my shoulder curled up to my neck under a hood. During the day it would run around and p it''s wings whenever I wasn''t feeding it. The thing looked silly since it was still a down covered thing and obviously couldn''t fly yet.-


    I found out in the worst way possible what the little ones ability was when it got startled and turned the surrounding twenty meters into a frozen hellscape so cold that the gasses in the air turned to hail in an instant. If not for this I would have thought this to be some form of ice release like the Yuki n used to have. But afterparing the two from records it became very clear that this was way way colder than what they could achieve. It took some work to get the little one to do it again with the Hokage watching this time since I figured if anyone could identify what was going on it''d be him.-


    "I''ve only seen one other thing like this before but if this is indeed simr this matter needs to remain hidden at all costs. You are no doubt familiar with Kekkai Genkai, which is the fusion of two chakra natures to create a new and more powerful one but there is something beyond even that, Kekkai Tota. A fusing of three chakra natures with the only known example being the dust release created by the second Tsuchikage and currently used exclusively by the third."-


    "From what we know it isprised of earth, fire and wind chakra but beyond that we know next to nothing. If I had to guess I''d say that this is a mix of wind and water like the standard ice release with something else added to it taking it to another level. As for what thatst chakra nature is we can only specte since it''s clear that this kekkai tota is heavily dominated by the wind and water natures with thest being very minutely involved. Perhaps fire assuming it takes the aspect of temperature from it. Whatever the case copying this ability is to be your top priority understood?" he said seriously.


    I nodded "I don''t know if I can copy it but I will try my best." I said firmly.


    "Good but since this is a new ability we need a name for it." he said with a frown.


    "Why not Arctic release or Zero release?" I suggested and he thought about it for a moment before nodding with a smile.


    "Lets go with Zero release. I''m looking forward to the future when I can rub it in that fence sitters face that Konoha has a kekkai tota as well!" the old man said with an excited smile.


    After that I secretly worked with the little crane to help it master it''s ability while trying to copy it''s chakra movements when it used it. There was a ratherrge downside to the Zero release ability however that I reported to the Hokage but that he expected, it was a chakra hog. Even a small usage tore off a massive amount of the cranes chakra and left it tired afterwards. The results were well worth it in my opinion as the stuff was pretty much unstoppable and lethal just like dust release.-


    Unlike dust release however we had noted that the effect lingered for quite a while which meant that even if you dodged the initial attack you still needed to stay out of the area of effect or you risked extreme danger. Besides this chakra training the crane was fairly normal during this time except that it was extremely smart and had already began to understand speech even when it wasn''t me speaking. I suppose it should also be mentioned that Teuchi was by far the little cranes favorite person other than me.-


    I couldn''t exactly say that that was all that odd though as the man just had a way of getting on everyone''s good side. Soon though it was Narutos birthday and like usual it was a quiet affair with only myself and a few others being present including the Hokage. I got my friend the deed to his t which cost me a few hundred thousand ryo but would let him save a whole bunch of money on rent each month. He tried to reject my gift as being worth way too much until I t out told him how rich I actually was thanks to my gambling and constant medical missions.-


    A few hundred thousand ryo was chump change to my just under hundred million ryo savings. I was getting close to being able to afford that parcel ofnd I wanted at the base of Hokage mountain that the ns had jacked up the price to stop people from buying. Would it likely piss them off when I did in fact purchase it, undoubtedly. Do I care? Not even a little. You may be wondering what would be of my tree house at that time and the answer was simply that I was going to take it with me more or less.-


    It wouldn''t even be all that hard either since I knew exactly what was holding it in ce and thus what to remove to take it apart without damaging it. Anyways Narutos birthday went off without a hitch and it was back to business as usual for everyone. I could tell however that this was merely the calm before the storm as my instincts were warning me that SOMETHING wasing but what exactly I wasn''t sure. Raising the little crane took up arge chunk of my time so I could only reluctantly create an additional clone to maintain progress.-


    One clone took missions to rack up points and money, one focused on taking care of the crane and trying to copy it''s ability while my main body learnt normal ninjutsu and worked on improving my chakra projections. This was how things went for the next six months before the annual chunin exams started getting close. Over these six months the crane whom I named Shiro due to it''s solid pearlescent white feathers that it was now covered in had grown into a very young but otherwise mature adult.-


    He stood at seven feet tall with a fifteen foot wingspan that was a marvel to look at in flight. He was a crowd favorite in the vige as he had a sack of money tied to his neck to pay for his food as he ate at Ichiraku. Yes the crane ate ramen and yes it did strike many as odd at first. What few knew however in the vige was that Shiro was a top tier elite jonin level chakra beast that was rapidly reaching S rank as it''s body grew for the final stretch.

 Improvements

    Improvements


    Shiro''s development wasn''t the only thing worth mentioning during this six month period as I and others had made great strides forward. Lets start with Naruto who had learned a B rank wind release jutsu and even developed a rather interesting use for chakra threads. How he achieved this was simply by abusing the unholy hell out of the [multishadow clone] jutsu and getting some outside inspiration. The blonde learned the B rank jutsu [Typhoon palm] that was a direct upgrade of the [Gale palm] jutsu.-


    [Typhoon palm] was as the name implied a release of a massive amount of sharp wind in the form of a sideways tornado from your palm. Unlike [Great breakthrough] jutsu that was more about sending out a wide area of forceful wind to send your opponent flying and if used right smashing into a hard object [typhoon palm] was all semi-focused destruction in a location you pointed. Moving on from that jutsu Naruto had taken inspiration from my chakra flow and chakra projection.-


    He created a weird but interesting way to utilize his chakra threads that I must admit he''s gotten quite good at using. Basically what he does is create several thousand short threads that he covers his body in whileshing out with them in a sharp manner if you got to close to him. You may be asking how he even has the focus to use so many chakra threads and that''s why I said it was weird. -


    Rather than use an ungodly amount of focus to control so many normal long threads Naruto instead traded range for quantity. It takes way less focus to create thousands of six inch threads and keep them up than it does to create ten several meter long threads. Naruto simplified things even further by using the threads as a sort of armor on his arms and torso as he only needed to keep them in ce until it was time to make them sharp and stabby. The technique had serious ws as he still needed a lot of focus to keep up the armor and utilize it quickly and until his brain got used to such a heavy workload he''d have aggy reaction time.-


    The trade off however was that he was a taijutsu nightmare as he was practically un touchable as his sharp threads stabbed you if you got too close to him and that included throwing weapons as well that he could "grab" with his threads to stop harmlessly. It was the sort of unhinged technique that suited him perfectly with his reckless way of fighting. You''d never catch anyone else using it however as it was massively chakra depletive. Like even Naruto could only keep it up for five minutes type depletive.-


    There had been other developments during thest six months as well such as my sensei breaking the hold that her phobia had over her more or less. There was some residual anxiousness at the sight of the stuff but she told me that she could at least perform minor surgeries without freezing which was massive progress. Sasuke had also ramped up his training when he noticed Naruto starting to surpass him and Kakashi being a dumbass taught the vengeance driven brat the [lightning cutter] which was a REALLY bad idea.-


    Sakura was being left behind but there wasn''t much she could do about that without branching out to less traveled paths. She was not very good at taijutsu or ninjutsu but her chakra control was rather good so I suppose she could make a decent iryonin if she didn''t scoff at the profession. Oh yeah she totally scoffed at me when I told her about her potential as a medical ninja and I might have gotten rather offended. I didn''t hurt her or anything but I was damned tempted to back hand her for insulting the profession.-


    She had the audacity to say that iryonin had no future as shinobi like there wasn''t dozens of examples that said otherwise. Hell iryonin had the highest Jonin ratio out of all the professions a shinobi could have SPECIFICALLY because of the chakra control and precision that it requires. It''s astonishing just how big a difference excellent chakra control makes when performing ninjutsu and various otherbat shinobi things like weapon throwing, stealth and more. Moving on from that lost cause we had Kiba(the dude not the beast) who had gotten really good at the Inuzuka ns taijutsu and jutsus after getting tips from me periodically.-


    Shino also got a few types of bugs that were unique to him after I found andmanded them to listen to him. He has no less than twelve different types of poisonous insects now and that meant he was a nightmare to deal with if he went for assassinations. I wasn''t really paying attention to my other ssmates other than perhaps Rock Lee who I was rooting for as he had trulye quite far since the academy under Might Guy. He couldn''t use ninjutsu but let me tell you if he went all out Rock lee was a force to be reckoned with.-


    I believe it was a technique called the [eight gates] that Might Guy and Rock Lee trained in but it caused them to be way more powerful with each gate that they released though I had personally only seen them use up to the fourth gate. The technique had way more downsides than upsides however as it can and will destroy your body every time you use it as ording to Guy the technique worked by removing the innate limiters of whoever used it which obviously meant that you went past what was safe for your body to handle.-


    Might Guy was more than happy to try and teach me the first few gates of the technique but after feeling the recoil of the first gate I t out told him it wasn''t for me. The man didn''t seem disappointed or even surprised but very seriously told me that it wasn''t for most people as even Kakashi who apparently knew the technique refused to use it even if his life depended on it. All that said Rock Lee and I had gotten much better acquainted after I had treated him in the hospital near everyday for three months.-


    Last but of course most important of all was the improvements I myself made over thest six months. My chakra projection had grown to cover an entire hand by this time which wasn''t much but let me imitate the exact shape of my beasts attacking implements. For example I could create a fully solid and functional replica of Rens pincers and stinger out of chakra which made a world of difference as far as my taijutsu went. There was always a loss in efficiency with trying to copy my beasts with my human anatomy but that was minimized a good bit thanks to this.

 Chunin exams

    Chunin exams


    (Before I get into this I would like to point out that we are not in fact given a timeframe between graduation and the Chunin exams in canon. With this in mind I am merely making a rough estimation based on context clues.)


    A few days ago the announcement of the yearly Chunin exams had been spread out in the vige and was a joint event this year between Konoha, the smaller viges and Suna(Vige hidden in the sand) who was allied with us. Many of my ssmates were nning to attend in order to try and be Chunin but in my opinion only maybe six actually deserved that rank at the moment. Sasuke, Naruto, Neji, Rock Lee, Shikamaru and Ino were the only ssmates I believed should be promoted but it wasn''t up to me so it was entirely possible that those that pass would include some others as well.-


    The way the Chunin exams worked while always slightly different each year was roughly the same. It was designed to test your will, perception, teamwork and finally but usually most importantly yourbat ability. As I said though HOW they tested these things was never exactly the same with the exception of thebat ability which was tested via tournament every year with only the winner being guaranteed promotion to Chunin. Last years Chunin exam was hosted by Suna and the tests involved a genjutsu and written test followed by a scavenger hunt in the city for a four word code phrase that the teams had to figure out before reporting to the finish line toplete. -


    There was some rumors that Suna yed dirty to hold back some of our genin from getting promoted but nothing came of them so they got ignored. This year we were hosting the exams however so the vige kicked into high gear as everyone prepared for the exams in their own way. The restaurants and shops started stocking up on local merchandise, gambling houses and bookies piled up funds for the annual gambling pool on who was going to win this year.-


    The Hokage and shinobi of the leaf tightened security of the routes in thend of fire though stillx enough that criminals could still operate if they were crafty enough. I myself was pretty much unaffected by the announcement as I neither needed to participate or take part in setting it up. For me the exams would be little more than a sporting event to watch and cheer on my ssmates that were participating. Narutoined about that quite a bit as well.-


    "Ah man this sucks! Why do you get promoted straight to Chunin while we have to take this stinking exam?" he belly ached to me when we were hanging out.


    "Because I was as strong as a special Jonin when I got promoted and you are all at Chunin level even if towards the middle of that level. Mind you I am referring to my own personal strength and not the strength of my beasts. You add those and I''d easily reach the upper tier of special Jonin rank at that time. It''s different now as I am willing to bet my strength could count as Jonin at this moment even without my beasts and with them well, higher." I exined calmly while brewing some wild tea leaves I found in the forest.-


    The leaves were quite bitter if brewed normally but if you cut it with some milk and honey it was quite nice, at least in my opinion that is. Naruto was of a different mind as he had long gotten into the habit of avoiding my tea since the vor didn''t agree with him. My blonde friend didn''t argue with me at this time since he knew from personal experience that I didn''t lie about stuff like this or about much to begin with.-


    "Any idea whats going to be in the exams?" he ended up asking after a few moments of silence.


    "I can''t say for certain but I believe the first part should be a written test since I''ve been noticing movement in the academy that suggests part of the exam will take ce there. Of course I may be wrong in which case pay what I''ve said no mind." I said casually.


    "Ah man I hate written tests!" Narutoined.


    "Sorry to say but theres nothing I can do to help you in this regard since I have no idea whats on the test." I said with a shrug.


    "Yeah I know that but that does make it any better!" he said dramatically.


    "Rx Naruto, I think you''ll do just fine so long as you keep your cool. You''re ready to be a Chunin so this exam should be a cinch." I said with a smile.


    Naruto cheered up after that and we chatted about how his time with Kakashi went and besides a few small events worth noting it was all fairly normal. One thing he didin about was that Kakashi was rather stingy with ninjutsu and had only taught them each three jutsu and refused to teach them more until they mastered them.-


    I chastised him for being greedy as there truly wasn''t anything wrong with this approach as all Kakashi''s job was to ensure that his students had a solid foundation to grow from which he achieved. Each of the mans students had a base from which they could build an entire fighting system around in the future if they were willing to put in the work on their own time.-


    They weren''t like me where my power continued to naturally umte as my body matured and even if I sat on my hands until I physically matured I would only grow stronger. Not to say I would ever waste my potential like that but the point still stood. Hard work was pretty much the only path a shinobi had to grow more powerful unless they were a broken existence like me, Kakashi''s squad was not. Don''t get me wrong Sasuke and Naruto had frightening levels of talent but neither were like myself where I broke all sorts of rules just by existing.-


    Hell I recently hit a growth spurt that had my reach six feet tall which wasn''t massive for my age but definitely above average and along with that growth spurt came a massive amount of pure brutal strength. It was so bad in fact that I started wearing seals on my body that restricted my strength by nearly fifty percent and I could still uproot a tree with the air pressure of a single punch. Ninja biology was damn weird when the absolute pinnacle of physical power a thirteen year old could reach was so extreme.-


    I knew why I was so strong as well thanks to my iryonin training. See a shinobi''s chakra was split between physical and spiritual energy and by me being a sage both those energies were pushed to their limits gradually over time. Naturally this also meant that my growth spurt also caused my already ridiculous chakra reserves to grow even further to match my new physical form. Unfortunately this also came with the downside that I had to spend some time retraining my chakra control back up to snuff.

 Beast update and hidden conflict

    Beast update and hidden conflict


    It wasn''t all that hard really since I merely needed to ount for my new level of chakra and augment my control for it. It barely took me two days to adjust perfectly and get back to my regr schedule. If you were wondering about my progress on copying Shiro''s ability then I had the unfortunate news of utterly failing. Copying the chakra movements was a piece of cake but without knowing exactly which elements made up the ability I simply couldn''t replicate it''s effects. There was also the issue of ratios and implementation that needed to be taken into consideration.-


    Needless to say my progress was abysmalpared to trying to copy the rest of my beasts abilities. Even my lizards ability wasing along much better and I couldn''t sense it''s chakra flow when the ability was in use. The ability cut off all forms of sensory information that could be detected other than scent, sound and natural energy which as you can expect was really damn hard to copy. The only reason I was even making any progress at all was because I had my lizard use it''s ability in a localized area on it''s body like a single leg or head and worked to copy the chakra flow I could still perceive outside of those areas.-


    Thanks to this I was slowly but surely getting a full mapping of it''s chakra flow and all that came after that was the elemental chakra nature transformation required to pull it off. I suppose I should also sort of mention that my caterpir had finally cocooned up after growing nearly ten feet long and four feet wide, it was a chunky looking bug. The cocoon was also blindingly bright as far as natural energy was concerned as it was practically drawing in an ocean of the stuff.-


    Not that I was all that surprised by this considering the gluttonous thing had been eating my sage chakra for nearly the entire time I had it. That was to say a little under two and a half years of near daily consumption of my sage chakra. Frankly speaking I''d be disappointed if whatever the caterpir turned into wasn''t a sage beast straight out the gate after so much familiarization with natural energy during it''s developmental phase. I wouldn''t be angry if it turned out otherwise but definitely disappointed.-


    Thanks to the supplements that I now regrly fed my beasts as treats the rest of my beasts had also grown considerably more powerful as well. My hawk was now nearly as strong as a peak chunin, my cat was the same. My turtle had barely broken into special Jonin territory but only then because of it''s extreme defense and size. It was nearly the size of a boulder and it''s shell was so durable that not even I with all my strength could crack it. Kiba(the wolfdog) was firmly in Jonin level.-


    My Bear was an elite Jonin level lumbering mass of physical destruction over sixteen feet tall and covered in a thickyer of muscle and fat under it''s tough hide thatzed about whenever it wasn''t eating. Akasha(my tiger) was second only to Shiro in terms of power at peak elite Jonin and spent most of her day stalking the ninjas foolish enough to wander into her territory. She didn''t attack them but she seemed to enjoy inflicting terror on them as she lets them know subtly that she was there without exposing herself. My snake was peak chunin and teetering on the edge of stepping into special Jonin though needed a bit more to truly reach that point.-


    Mizuhe(the cricket) was at the mid special Jonin level and had stopped growing at two feet long and five inches thick from back to belly. Despite this however it had begun to learn how to create mist that allowed it''s natural ability to shine. My lizard was also at the mid chunin level but that was mostly because it specialized in stealth rather thanbat. Finally of course was my first beast Ren(the scorpion) that was now the size of arge hill and showed no signs of stopping it''s growth.-


    Ren was my third strongest beast at elite Jonin level but with a slight caveat, it didn''t fight well with others. The reason for this was simply because his toxins had reached such a high level of lethality and vastness that he could saturate a massive area with them easily which naturally meant it would effect allies and enemies alike. Unfortunately this meant if I wanted him to fight at his best I couldn''t summon any other beasts as well as having to be effectively alone with the enemy. It was a heavy restriction to be sure but there was nothing I could do about it.-


    On average the fighting power of all my beastsbined together was peak special Jonin to low Jonin level which was certainly nothing to scoff at. What this meant was that in a war time scenario I was effectively a one man toon, a strong one at that even without including Shiro''s ability. I''m going to be honest here my cranes ability was busted to hell and back as if unleashed at maximum range(which was quiterge) it could destroy the entire vige in an instant.-


    Miles of people, nts, animals and everything else all frozen solid in a single moment. Of course such arge attackes with an equally intense cost as I estimated that should Shiro unleash such an attack it would render him helpless and dangerously low on chakra. I''m talking a sneeze away from death low on chakra. This area of effect type nature of his ability was also the reason the Hokage told me that in terms of danger it was higher than the dust release of the Tsuchikage. Dust release was apparently extremelypact in nature and thus not suitable for wide area attacks but makes up for it in sheer destructiveness.-


    Zero release however was ONLY area of effect in nature so while considerably less destructive it was far much more difficult to dodgepared to dust release hence making it a greater threat between the two. You may be wondering what Danzo was doing since he obviously knew about Shiro? To answer that you need to understand that Danzo I had found was all about moving in secret and scheming to himself. Naturally this meant he was definitely making ns in secret and was merely waiting for the right oppurtunity to act.-


    That was fine by me though as I had my own ns in this regard to finally pluck out this thorn from my side. I couldn''t justify killing the old bastard in cold blood unless I wanted to be treated like a traitor to the vige but the moment he made a move I was going to rip his heart out one way or another. There was no avoiding it either as it was clear that neither of us were willing to tolerate the behavior and existence of the other.

 Plans for Danzo and teams arriving

    ns for Danzo and teams arriving


    I had of course investigated the guy myself after he kept sending people to spy on me. What I found was that Danzo Shimura was a paranoid individual that seemed to have an issue with secrecy. I had covered myself in nature energy to avoid detection while I trailed him but was forced to run around in circles for like an hour as he went through every method to ditch a tail that he could before finally entering one of his secret bases that were positively COVERED in seals. Thanks to my sensei I had gotten quite familiar with identifying the presence of seals after all.-


    Even more extreme was that Danzo was nearly always in one of his bases and thus out of my reach unless I decided to toss all caution and carefulness to the wind and go straight for him. The rare instance that the man was not in his bases or surrounded by guards escorting him in secret he was constantly vignt of his surrounds like he expected to get attacked in the middle of the vige. This made ambushing him with the intent of cleaving his head off and leaving pretty much impossible as he never got into a position that would allow me or anyone for that matter to kill him without getting caught.-


    It was a bit frustrating to be honest but there was literally nothing I could do about it. That said his subordinates weren''t off the table of people I could make disappear silently. It would beughably easy as they weren''t nearly so cautious as their leader and it would take little effort for me to make them vanish without a trace. I of course wasn''t so foolish as to do so however as all that would aplish was to raise the mans vignce even higher. -


    Instead I bide my time while probing the defenses of his base to find a way in without tripping the seals. I thought about just flooding the whole base with a toxic mist but that would no doubt get traced back to me when the poison waspared to existing samples and found to be nearly identical to Rens poison. While I could easily y it off since I sold Rens poison in the vige for quite some time in the past and it was not much of a stretch that a foreign shinobi could ess it. The doubt that I was involved would always exist however which was not good.-


    Still I had found out that the seals had a fatal w in that they detected chakra in a living being sort of like a Byakugan and that meant that I just so happened to have a beast with the perfect ability to infiltrate one of these bases, my lizard. Unfortunately there were other seals that detected sound, air movement and scent that were not possible to avoid with my lizards ability. Thankfully I had methods to fix some of these issues.-


    For the scent I could just remove it with powders while for the air movements I just needed to stick close to a group of three or more shinobi entering the base. Sound was going to be trickier but if I was in a group I should be able to disguise my own sounds with the groups. All of this of course predicated on the assumption that I figured out how to perfectly mimic my lizards ability. Until then I merely sent a shadow clone everyday to keep an eye on the man.-


    Moving on from my plot to assassinate Danzo the Chunin exams started to draw near enough that the participants from the other viges began to show up. While all the viges got an invitation to participate only Suna(sand), Taki(waterfall), Kusa(grass), Oto(sound) and Ame(rain) epted and sent genin to participate. The participants needed to be in three man squads to participate and the final count for each of the viges Konoha: twenty nine teams, Suna: ten teams, Taki: two teams, Kusa: two teams, Ame: seven teams, Oto: one team. This meant there was a total of one hundred and fifty three participants or fifty one teams if you prefer.-


    There was of course jonin apanying these teams of genin and under watch to make sure no one does anything unfortunate like the Hyuga incident years back. That event was right after the third great war and Kumo(the cloud) had sent ambassadors only for one of them to try and kidnap Hinata who was a toddler at the time. The leader of the Hyuga n killed the ambassador and triggered Kumo into demanding the n leaders corpse as repayment unless we wanted to go back to war.-


    Shamefully we ended up sacrificing the n leaders twin brother to appease Kumo as the vige simply couldn''t handle yet another war so soon after thest. Thanks to that incident Konoha always kept a distrustful eye on any visiting people from other viges. Otherwise however we were a fairly hospitable people as we greeted our guests in a friendly manner even if it wasn''t returned. Like we didn''t bend over backwards to whatever whims they had but we still amodated them just fine. That said not all of the teams sent to our fine vige were friendly and some were downright hostile.-


    For example the teamprised of the fourth Kazekages children was very abrasive when they first came to the vige even going so far as to insult us as weak while trying to beat up Konohamaru who was a mere child defending the viges honor. That was a bit too much for Naruto and myself as we moved to confront them about it after witnessing this esction. Naruto blocked the attack at the kid while Inded behind the team and pressured them with the full force of my chakra. All three of them were forced to their knees as the ground rumbled and the winds began to howl.-


    "Sunagakure must be failing to properly educate their genin if you don''t even know how to behave in a foreign vige." I said calmly while looking down at them.


    "That''s enough Kenzo, they are our guests for the moment even if they were out of line." Kakashi said when he showed up to mediate.-


    "As you say." I acknowledged and withdrew my chakra in an instant restoring the area like nothing had happened.


    The blonde girl and boy with face paint looked at me warily as they stood up but the red headed boy with the tattooed word meaning "love" on his forehead and earthen gourd on his back red at me with murderous intent that was very thick. I merely raised an eyebrow at him however since he was much too weak to think he could take me. Sure he had arge reserve of chakra that was acting suspiciously simr to Narutos when the nine tails was acting up. But other than that he was weak as his body was untrained beyond the very minimum and he clearly had some sort of mental issue.

 Tailed chat

    Tailed chat


    "Hmm, If memory serves the tailed beast held by Suna is none other than the one tails. I was under the impression that the jinchuriki was kept hidden and yet your vige would send such a person here to be a Chunin. I must say that you people are quite bold. Speaking of tailed beasts you guys should really do something about the seal on that thing as it''s tormenting it''s host at the moment." I said casually and the looks on the trio''s faces changed in an instant.


    The two with the red haired Jinchuriki looked panicked while the murderous intent of the red head intensified but it wasn''t from the boy himself. No I could tell that it came from one tailed beast within him instead mostly because it was leaking from his chakra itself.


    "Now what was it I said that could have made you so angry? Was it because I called you a thing or because I mentioned the tightening of the seals holding you down?" I asked curiously.


    I couldn''t exactlymunicate with the nine tails thanks to the seals holding it down in Naruto being way better than whatever was going on with this red haired guy. So finding out that the tailed beasts weren''t just unintelligent masses of chakra like I had been led to believe but could even understand speech and possibly even be able to talk themselves was a fascinating thing. Naturally I was curious about whether it was possible to open a dialogue between us if that was the case. Can you even imagine the sort of things that such an old individual knew? The tailed beasts were born many hundreds of years ago so naturally they had likely learnt quite a lot.-


    "It wants to kill you, to kill everyone!" the red haired boy said hoarsely.


    "That''s unfortunate, I had hoped to have a conversation if possible now that I know that it can understand speech. For example perhaps to ask why all it and the nine tails seem so full of hatred and anger?" I said calmly.


    "It.. answered you?" the boys expression morphed into one of shock and confusion as he spoke.


    "Oh? Well go on them what did it say?" I asked eagerly.


    "It said that it hates you shinobi who imprison them and use them like mere tools of war so it wants you all dead." the red haired boy said with a bewildered look.


    "Ah yes I suppose that is a good reason though rather unfair to lump every shinobi together like that. Take this situation for example where a shinobi, I, am genuinely trying to understand you. I doubt that I would be alone either in this matter." I said honestly.


    "The sins of the many do not exclude the few." the boy said ying the confused intermediary between the tailed beast and I.


    "That''s a two way street you know. What of your own sins hmm? The innocents you all killed in your rampages, the destruction created when you all were free to roam as you wished? Personally I believe death to be the best punishment since it''s quick and rtively painless for crimes but from what I gather your kind simply resurrect after a period of time so that isn''t really a viable solution is it? Perhaps that is why you were sealed away originally." I suggested and the boy went quiet.


    The looks on Kakashi''s and the others faces were confused but reluctant to intervene. Not that I could me them really as this was definitely not something that happens everyday. To be honest I had a strong feeling that it was only due to my own unique nature that the tailed beast was even sparing me the time to speak like this.-


    It was so long ago but I remember the confusion I felt from the nine tails when I was merely an infant and it sensed me while I was sensing it. The red haired boy remained silent for a few minutes while everyone waited with bated breath for his or rather the beasts response.


    "It... it went quiet!? Who are you and why does this demon listen to you?" the boy couldn''t help asking me with a tone that desperately sought answers and what I vaguely picked up as hope.


    I chuckled "I''m just a simple guy with an affinity for beasts and an open mind is all." I joked without lying.


    The boys eyes widened massively "It it itughed!?" he eximed in stuttering shock.


    The jonin with the suna group finally snapped out of it at this point and had a dark expression for some reason as he dragged the trio away in a hurry.


    "Always full of surprises aren''t you Kenzo?" Kakashi muttered out loud.


    I shrugged "Who knows, maybe it was always that easy to begin with and we''ve just been going about it wrong this whole time?" I said casually.


    "It''s possible, as the one tails said we shinobi have always treated the tailed beasts as monsters, tools and weapons of war rather than as people so they might be in the right to hate us. I''ll need to report this to the Lord Hokage." the silver haired man said seriously before flickering away.


    ''Well that was an interesting and enlightening conversation, though I feel it wille back to bite meter. Oh well.'' I thought before taking my leave as well.


    Naruto pestered me quite a bit about talking to the nine tails but I t out told him that due to the seals on him being the way they were I couldn''t do it. The seals on the red haired boy whom I learnt was named Gaara on the otherhand were almost on the verge of not working at all which meant the beast within him was able to constantly mess with his mind and attempt to escape it''s seal.-


    It may as well have been unsealed for all the good that it was doing to keep the thing controlled. The Hokage was less than pleased when I got summoned the next day and chastised me for my actions. He was specifically talking about me suppressing the trio with my chakra which okay I admit was a touch overboard but it is what it is. Other than that he told me to keep my ideas on the sealing of the tailed beasts to myself as even if he understood that I might be right there was far too much invested in maintaining control over the beasts for the viges.-


    Effectively I was told to shut my mouth and turn a blind eye to the plight of the tailed beasts which offended me a little. Not because I actually cared about what happens with the things but that he thought I''d actually act on such thoughts. I''m not stupid enough to try and release nine creatures so powerful that an entire vige of shinobi BARELY managed to handle one of thirteen years ago. Much less when said creatures had made it clear that they REALLY didn''t like us shinobi.

 Exams

    Exams


    Once all the teams arrived in Konoha things started to heat up as it was time for the first exam to begin. The first exam was as I expected taking ce within the academy as a written test or at least that was how it looked from the surface. I could tell however that there wereyers involved that went beyond that. The first was that the [false surroundings] jutsu had been minorly applied to the ss numbers to confuse the genin into going to the wrong room and thus getting disqualified.-


    The secondyer was the written test itself that held many questions that were well beyond the Genin level and thus a sort of challenge in and of themselves. The thirdyer was that the exam was actually a test of how sneaky these genin could be as there was an implied hint that they should cheat to pass. The finalyer however was the most hrious in my opinion as it was simply that the written test itself was bullshit and only the question that the instructor asked at the end of the time that mattered.-


    Those that didn''t answer all failed without exception but Naruto being the person he was ended up inciting way more teams into passing than the viges anticipated. A total of twenty six teams in fact which caused the second exam to be made harsher topensate. The second exam started almost immediately and was a survival game with a fewyers to it. The first was that each team got a single scroll that belonged to a set of two, the heaven scroll and the earth scroll. Second no matter how things went there would at most only be thirteen teams advancing as each team needed both scrolls to pass.-


    The thirdyer was that this test was set to take ce in the forest of death and that each person participating had to sign a death and injury waiver. While the exam had people watching over the participants to avoid death as much as possible the chance was still very much present. Something rather funny was that this exam was taking ce smack dab in the middle of my territory with my home being in the dead center of this ce. Obviously i was told to vacate the building for the exam but that didn''t mean that the teams from Konoha wouldn''t have an unfair advantage since my home was well known to most of them.-


    While only Naruto, Shino and Kiba knew it''s exact location that was more than enough as that meant so long as they didn''t fight on sight the two teams that had them in it could shack up there during the exam rather than roughing it in the wilds. Something that I personally heard Shikamaruin about. Yeah I was totally stealthing it up in the nearby shadows watching this whole thing go down. Not that anyone knew since I was cloaked in natural energy that made me next to impossible to spot.-


    Speaking of hard to spot people there were some in a disguise that was definitely NOT a Genin. Their head band said they were part of Kusagakure but my senses said otherwise. First off was that while at first nce their chakra looked normal and thus easy to miss with the Byakugan a closer inspection showed that that was a lie. The chakra was actually sealed and suppressed down to that size unnaturally and thus had a certain "feel" to it that said it''s true size was muchrger.-


    There was also this sort of wrongness to one person that made me wary of them on an instinctual basis. It was hard to exin really but it was like their body and soul didn''t belong to the same person and were disharmonious. Moving on from that weirdness we came to thestyer of this second exam, the trap. The person in charge of this exam said that the teams had to report to the tower in the forest in three days with both scrolls in order to pass, what wasn''t said however was that there was nothing stopping the teams from going there immediately and just jacking another teams scrolls.-


    This turned this exam into a full on hostile confrontation type deal as you now had to worry about preserving your strength to fend off those hiding near the tower at the end of these three days. Naturally like always you could finish the exam early if you could get a pair of scrolls and make your way to the tower before the time limit. Unfortunately that was as far as I could personally watch the exam as the Hokage had been cunning and requested my presence in the political booth to represent my sensei as her disciple.-


    I couldn''t exactly say no either as the old man had not so subtly implied that he had promised my presence to the Daimyo of Fire who was eager to meet me apparently. As a shinobi of the leaf that meant I was all but forced to attend or risk angering the backer of the vige which was definitely NOT something I wanted to do. I contemted sending one of my mitosis clones since they are fully solid and nearly impossible to notice. The old man had cut off that n however when he revealed one of the anbu with him to be a Hyuga.-


    With a bit of unwillingness I walked into the political booth before the start of the second exam in person.


    "Ah just who we were discussing! Kenzo I''d like to introduce you to Kenji Madoka-sama, the lord daimyo of thend of fire." the hokage said with a gentle smile while holding his hand out t towards the other man with him.


    The man had a long but chubby face and nd dull brown hair and eyes that rested on a nk expressioned face.


    ''He''s so weak though?'' I thought in confused as I sized the man supposedly holding the power to disband Konoha should he choose.


    It was hard to equate the word power with this man at all as his body was untrained and over fed, he had pitiful amounts of chakra and he was seemingly oblivious to the fact that nearly everyone in this room besides him was a powerful killer. He reminded me of a particrly retarded panda and as a result I really couldn''t wrap my mind around him being inmand of anything much less an entire country.


    "A pleasure to make your acquaintance sir." I said with a friendly smile without letting my true thoughts slip out at all.


    "I was quite surprised to hear that Tsunade-chan had taken another apprentice but after hearing about your medical skill from so many sources I feel it was a truly wise decision." the man smiled lightly and said in a slow manner that grated on my ears like nails to chalkboards.

 Political disagreement

    Political disagreement


    Not so much because his voice was unpleasant in sound or anything like that but because I could tell from his tone and bodynguage that he was pathetically weak. It took me all of about five seconds to realize why I seemed to dislike the man like this. See as far as I knew factually speaking the Daimyo of any particr country was supposedly the highest power in that country. Unfortunate the definition of power I was expecting and the one I got in this first meeting were VERY different.-


    Politically speaking the man was a juggernaut that could break or raise an entire country by his words, will and resources alone. So yes in a way he was indeed quite powerful but in terms ofbat he was worth less than the weakest genin in the world. My mind had hyped up the man to some powerful warrior king and when reality proved me different I had developed a distaste for him immediately.-


    ''I may be taking after beasts a little too much it seems.'' I thought annoyed.


    I was so used to the food chain being topped by the actually powerful creatures that a fake like this disagreed with my way of life heavily.


    "I''m ttered you''d say so sir but I really must insist that it was my sensei''s teachings that are to be praised instead." I said downying my own talents in the process.


    "Is that so? Perhaps I''ll need to ask her when next she visits. I would normally ask you to work as a guard under me but if you are anything like your sensei you''ll just reject me." the man said with a chuckle.


    "I suppose you aren''t far off since I do rather enjoy my freedom, truly I do just hate when i am forced to do things." I said with a pointed look at the Hokage.


    The old bastard just chortled to himself like it amused him to see me frustrated.


    "Enough idle chatter though, lets talk about how to earn the most money from these exams." the Daimyo said with a sharp focused look that caught me off guard.


    "In what regard?" I asked suddenly VERY interested to see how this yed out.


    "Ha! You really are Tsunade-chans disciple! I''m talking about the betting pools of course, you were a ssmate of a good few participants so you''ll know things that the bookies won''t." the man said with a wide smile.


    "Ah! You want to know who''s got the best chance of winning from the Konoha teams! Well first off these ones here can be dropped immediately." I started passionately breaking down each of the participants I could since when gambling is concerned I may have sort of picked up a little of my sensei''s enthusiasm.


    You should have seen the look on the Hokages face as I systematically went over the strengths and weaknesses of my former ssmates while harshly criticizing their ws. The man looked on with a helpless look as the daimyo and I schemed and consorted about how to make the most money from my generous ssmates. I''m talking individual match up odds, overall victory chances, cements and even who had the most impressive techniques. Naruto won out on thatst one by the way as his porcupine technique was nightmarish to deal with and quite visually stunning too. Obviously it wasn''t the most practical of things but in terms of usefulness and power I couldn''t think of much at the chunin level that got remotely close to it.-


    Well perhaps an dojutsu or kekkai genkai but those didn''t exactly grow on trees so my point still stood. The daimyo and I ended up spending most of the first day creating a whole chart of various statistics to hedge our bets the best. He then called it a day as he was tired and I was left alone with the Hokage and his guards.


    "I''m d to see you seem to get along with the Daimyo quite well. If you''d humor this old man what are your thoughts on him?" he asked curiously.


    I looked him right in the eyes "Do you want my honest answer or the one that is political in nature?" I asked dead serious.


    His eyebrows rose in surprise "Now that doesn''t sound very good at all, surely he isn''t so bad that you''d dislike him to such a degree?" he asked but I shook my head.


    "If he wasn''t the Daimyo you''d be correct." I said honestly.


    "You''ll forgive me if I can''t understand what you mean, why would his being the Daimyo change your thoughts of him as a person?" the old man asked seriously.


    "Once again, do you want the truth or the politically correct answer?" I asked seriously.


    "i want the truth." he said sternly.


    "He''s weak, hopelessly so in fact. Even worse is that he acts as though this isn''t the case, like any random genin wouldn''t ughter him in a fight. I don''t like it , it feels wrong to me that someone so powerless is in charge of Konoha and thend of fire. I''d never act on these thoughts but that''s the way I see it since you wanted to know." I said bluntly honest.


    The old man looked disappointed in me "Power isn''t everything Kenzo." he said sternly.


    "I know that very well but don''t try and lie to me and say that it isn''t necessary either. You need power to lead others, to grasp your fate with both hands. You need power to have peace. Humans are violent and cruel beings just as much as we are kind and gentle. Without power you are helpless in the face of the darker side of humanity. Someone without power and the will to use that power should not ever take up a crown for themselves." I said firmly.


    "He is a good man who has done thend of fire good in the years he has sat on that throne. Will you deny this reality?" the old man said challengingly.


    "A good man you say? Done thend of fire good you say? History seems to disagree with you quite heavily. Every record i read about recent history all says the same thing about him, he''s a conformist. He agrees with whoever has the most convincing argument, who has the most benefit to give him. He''s made no reformations, no noticeable improvements from his own fathers time ruling. He sits on his throne and lets thend of fire rule itself while he gets the credit. He''s merely a figurehead with more political power than he has the will to utilize to it''s fullest." I said seriously.

 Second exam and qualifier tournament

    Second exam and qualifier tournament


    "What is wrong with that? He has perhaps not improved thend of fire but he has not worsened it either. Is that not also worthy of praise? Yes he is not a powerful warrior and yes he is not the best ruler but he is not the worst either. The position of Daimyo holds it''s own struggles and burdens so while he is weak he is mighty in his own way as well." the old man said in a tone that brokered no arguments.


    "I''ll agree to disagree on this matter." I said tly before turning to leave.


    I am willing to admit when someone had a point but this was not a topic where you could justpromise. He had points that could be considered merits for his side of the argument but in my opinion were weak and frail excuses. The Daimyo hasn''t made thend of fire worse, sure I can agree with that. But I also firmly believe that doesn''t mean the man should be sitting on the throne either. A rulers job is to improve the lives of those they rule over, not just keep it stagnant and the same as always.-


    As I said though I''d agree to disagree on this matter and not act on these thoughts. Some might consider me bellyaching about this yet doing nothing to be a stupid course of action but the fact of the matter is that I gain nothing for trying to implement change in this regard. Sure thend of fire would improve but why should I waste my time to aplish this when I was already a single step away from being a hermit. Yes I am self aware enough to know that I am in fact very reclusive in nature.-


    I don''t go out of my way to socialize and even when I do it''s with a very small amount of people while otherwise I stay far from anyone. Moving back to the topic of the Chunin exams I wasn''t surprised to find that some people had in fact shacked up in my home. What did surprise me however was WHO had done so. It wasn''t Naruto or Shino or Kiba''s teams but rather the Kazekages children. Eavesdropping I found out an interesting piece of information from listening to them talk.-


    "Not that I don''t appreciate not having to rough it in the forest but why does this ce even exist?" the girl, Temari, asked in confusion.


    "It says that HE lives here." Gaara said quietly and the other boy, Kankuro, gasped.


    "Why am I not surprised? Also how does that thing even know that anyways?" Temari asked curiously.


    "I don''t know, nothing it has said about that person makes any sense. It said that he reminded it of it''s father and that I should not even try to fight him but it won''t tell me why." Gaara said quietly.


    ''It''s father? That thing has a father, who is it?'' I thought confused.


    After that the trio moved on to talking about my home and I was offended by some of the stuff they said. Like how dare they squat in my ce and then insult it as primitive and unrefined!? Aesthetics withstanding they didn''t really have anything bad to say about the ce so I let them off by having a squirrel throw acorns at the windows all night. It was at most highly irritating but otherwise harmless. The next day the exams went on like usual with the first real shes starting as well as the first people passing in the form of the trio from Suna.-


    That was when shit it the fan as it turned out the dude from Kusa that my instincts warned me about was actually Orochimaru in disguise. I didn''t get to witness it go down but the man showed up and left some sort of seals on Naruto and Sasuke after manhandling them. The man seemed to vanish after that despite everyone including myself hunting for him. The vige was on high alert after that but the exam finished as per normal otherwise.-


    There was a sort of brief intermission where all the eleven teams that passed the second exam could recover before an impromptu mini tournament was held to lower the amount of participants in the actual tournament section. I attended this mini tournament as a spectator much to the surprise of quite a few people.


    "What are you doing here Kenzo? I thought only our sensei''s were allowed to be here?" Naruto asked confused to see me.


    "Not quite, only your sensei''s were told about this little elimination tournament but anyone was free toe watch if they wanted to." I exined with a smile.


    "Kenzo''s correct, though only us sensei''s were told in order to keep the distractions to a minimum." Kakashi said calmly.


    "Why are you here though, someone like you should have no reason to waste their time watching fights at this level?" Neji asked sternly.


    "Ah but that''s where you''d be wrong, you see everyone currently here has set foot on their path to power so naturally I woulde to size up my peers for the future. After all we may end up working together in the future." I said with a grin.


    "A rather rxed attitude for a shinobi don''t you think?" Temari asked confrontationally.


    "Not really, bluntly speaking there is only three people in this entire sparring hanger that could evene close to matching me and it''s these two plus that woman right there." I said pointing at Might Guy, Kakashi and Kurenai.


    "Rather arrogant of you to put yourself on the level of elites like them as a mere chunin." the blonde said mockingly.


    "Is that right?" I said with a smirk before reaching over to the wall behind us and casually scooping out a handful of stone.


    I rotated my hips and threw the stone as hard as I could at the ceiling overhead.


    "BOOM!"


    The air shook and howled like a wind release jutsu had been released in the building and the handful of stone impacted the ceiling and blew a massive hole through it as the force of the throw refused to be stopped.


    "You know you''ll have to pay for that right?" Kakashi asked with a chuckle while I froze.

 Karin Uzumaki and first fights

    Karin Uzumaki and first fights


    I groaned when I realized that he was right. "Ah man and here I was trying to show off a little!" Iined and the jonin just chuckled.


    "So long as we have such youthful spirits in the vige I think we will be just fine." Guy said with a bright smile and thumbs up.


    "But my savings!?" Iined.


    "The price of youth is truly a heavy one." he said still smiling.


    "Ugh! I was so bloody close to being able to buy thatnd I had my eye on too, damnit all." I whined upset at the set back.


    I didn''t actually care all that much since the cost wasn''t likely to actually be all that high to fix the ceiling but that didn''t mean it didn''t sting a bit. Still I was able to console myself with a recent acquisition I had currently stashed away in my home. A red haired girl with sses a couple years older than me that was a member of the Uzumaki n, Karin. The rest of her team had gotten killed in the forest of death during the second exam and I had recognized her features from the history books on her n and may or may not have kidnapped her a little.-


    To be fair she actually seemed happy toe with me after I rescued her and exined how wee she''d be in Konoha considering our deep ties to her n. She cried when I examined her for injuries and got pissed at what I found. Bite marks all over her arms where the ninjas of Kusa ninjas had used her innate healing abilities caused by her extremely strong yang chakra to heal from their injuries. They did this through biting her which sent the yang chakra into their bodies.-


    It was barbaric and cruel and it didn''t end there either as she was ostracized by the Kusa shinobi and treated as little more than an expendable tool from her childhood till now. Ironically it was this same poor treatment that saved her life as her team left her behind only to end up getting merc''d by Gaara who was in a bad mood for some inexplicable reason(cough*squirrel*cough). I currently had her waiting in my house with a mitosis clone for the end of the Chunin exams so I could sneakily bring her to the old man to ept into the vige.-


    There was one small issue however that I was having to deal with, she had princess syndrome BAD.


    "Hey Kenzo-kun what''s your favorite color? What about your favorite food?" she bombarded me with questions in an obvious attempt to get closer to me.


    Princess syndrome as I liked to call it was when a girl in danger gets rescued by a boy and immediately forms an attachment to him. As the rescuer in this scenario I was the target of her interest and annoyingly enough was helpless to tell her off.-


    She had a lot of trauma and I WAS trying to give her a positive impression of the vige forter which led to this awkward situation where I was unable to do anything beyond y nice. Thankfully she was only about as pushy as Naruto so I wasn''t too terribly bothered by her. Friend zoning her wasn''t really working and if anything seemed to make her MORE pushy for some gods awful reason. Yeah I had said we could be friends and she went nuts with the tears and the nonconsensual hugging and all that annoying stuff.-


    I''m being dramatic here as it really wasn''t that big a deal but get attached to like this bothered me for some reason. It was one thing with Naruto who I grew up with but Karin was in all actuality a stranger, a new face. I didn''t know her at all really on any sort of personal level so her getting so clingy was ufortable. Despite her traumatic past she was a very outgoing person and absolutely loved to read and learn. She smiled all the time and evenughed freely when she found something funny.-


    Funnily enough she and Akasha got along just fine as even when my clone was training or something she''d just sit up in my home with a book in one hand and Akasha''s head in herp as she idly stroked her fur. Admittedly I had totally forgot to introduce Karin to my beasts so when I realized that Akasha had returned I was worried she might have killed her only to find the huge tiger lounging in the girlsp contentedly. I rectified my mistake and introduced the girl to my beasts so there was no misunderstanding in the future.-


    I suppose I should specify that all of this was going on simultaneously with the other stuff involving the exam. Mitosis clones were useful at multitasking like this after all. Sure I ended up with my focus split up but the trade off was that I got so much more done this way than if I used mere shadow clones. One of the biggest ws of shadow clones was that once they spent the chakra you gave them that was it, they vanished. Mitosis clones on the other hand regenerated their chakra and were not vulnerable to dispelling via minor injury.-


    In theory I could even use a mitosis clone to learn how to wield a weapon or forge metal or some otherbor and time consuming task. Moving back to the present time during the qualifying tournament the matches had began. Most of the matches were boring and not worth mentioning with the first exception being Neji VS Hinata. Let me tell you that boy has some serious pent up anger at the main family of the Hyuga n as he absolutely destroyed her. She tried to fight back but Neji easily dealt with her resistance and cruelly made the fight as painful as he could by attacking her pressure points.-


    Naruto was NOT happy about it as the Hyuga boy touched a nerve in the process by talking down to Hinata. My blonde friend gets that fights are not pleasant things but he had this sort of code that he held people to during a fight and Neji crossed a few lines in it. For starters he was kinda an asshole to Hinata the entire time. He called her pathetic, he aired his grievances about the caged bird seal on his forehead and how she didn''t have one despite being a talentless waste.-


    All around the boy was not pleasant to watch for anyone from Konoha. The next fight worth mentioning was the one between Tenten and Temari. It was a bad matchup, in and simple. Tenten''s fighting strategy revolved around throwing a whole bunch of weapons at her opponent but that didn''t really work against Temari who was a wind release specialist. All the thrown weapons got deflected by the winds while Tenten herself was mmed around by the winds like a kickball.

 Stressed bodies

    Stressed bodies


    Unlike the fight between Hinata and Neji, Temari at least had the decency to point out that the match up was so overwhelmingly in her favor that she couldn''t evenment on Tenten''s strength. The fight between Kiba(the dude) and Naruto was irritating to watch as I could tell that something seemed to be wrong with Naruto''s chakra and it wasn''t the fox this time. Still Naruto won in the end with creative use of his shadow clones to barrage Kiba continuously afterunching him into the air.-


    The fight between Sakura and Ino was disappointing the watch as both sides were weak and foolish. The fight eventually ended up in a slugfest double knockout which was pathetic considering the match up. Ino was practically handed a victory on the palm of her hand since Sakura was helpless against the mind possession jutsu belonging to Ino''s n and yet the girl not only failed to use it but ended up getting into a taijutsu battle which was her biggest weakness. As for Sakura she was average at best, a real cannon fodder type shinobi. She had no strong jutsu, no great taijutsu and no kekkai genkai to rely on.-


    Hell her entire style of fighting was so unoriginal that I could have read the whole thing out of a damn textbook. Look I''m not saying that there is anything wrong with following a textbook style for your career as a shinobi. There are plenty of examples where that worked out fine and dandy but in not a single instance was such a person able to be more than just another face. They earned no nicknames and rarely had bounties in the bingo book(bounty book). They were just another faceless nobody shinobi.-


    She clearly didn''t want that, you could see it in her desperation to win here. It was easy to see that the events in the forest of death were a wake up call for her. Unfortunately a weeks time was not enough to change anything so she was still weak but at least she acknowledged it this time. There were two fights however that interested me greatly. The first was Rock Lee VS Gaara that was fascinating to watch. See Gaara had the ability to create and control sand with his chakra which was actually while he had a giant gourd on his back all the time, it had his sand in it.-


    Rock Lee on the other hand was pure raw physical power with his taijutsu which exposed a rather small but important w in Gaara''s ability, his timing. Thanks to his highly trained body Lee was REALLY fast for a shinobi. Thanks to this everyone watching the fight learned that Gaara had a small window of time between when he perceived an attack and the sand moving to block it. Lee moved just fast enough that he could hit Gaara before the red haired boy could react. That was until Gaara grew frustrated and countered with an omnidirectional attack that dropped Lee''s speed back to levels he could handle.-


    Lee finally got the go ahead at that time by Guy to take off his weights that Temari put her foot in her mouth by saying there was no way some "measly" weights being removed could close the distance between Gaara and Lee.


    "Two thousand pounds on each leg and he was giving Gaara trouble before, what about now?" I asked with a chuckle as the weights hit the ground shaking the building.


    "Really Guy? Leg weights?" Kakashi asked in exasperation.


    "Lee needs them if he wants to keep up with the rest of his his peers." I said and Guy gave me thumbs up.


    "Kenzo gets it. Lee''s a Taijutsu specialist and I believe one day he''ll surpass even me with his youth!" guy said brightly.


    "How did you know how much his weights were though?" Naruto asked curiously.


    "I know because I''m the one who treats him for the stress they put on his body nearly each day. Weights seem like an easy way to grow your body stronger but as I keep telling him putting them on your legs alone causes problems. The human body is built in such a way that all our weight is more or less spread out evenly and thuspensated for by the entire body with the legs of course getting the most stress put on them due to them holding up a majority of that weight. Add more weight to the legs and you get unbnced since only your legs get strengthened." I exined calmly.


    "That doesn''t sound so bad?" Naruto said confused.


    I sighed and looked at Kurenai "Would you do me a favor and put him in a genjutsu where his legs move faster than normal by a lot but the rest of him stays the same?" I asked and she looked to Kakashi for approval and the silver haired man nodded.


    The woman did as I asked and altered Narutos perception which left him confused. "I still don''t see what the issue is?" heined and I groaned.


    "Actually try moving before you jump to conclusion will you?" I asked exasperated.


    What followed was Naruto falling on his ass immediately with wide eyes. "How the hell are you supposed to be able to move like that!?" he eximed in shock.


    I casually broke the genjutsu on my friend before exining "You aren''t, it''s an unnatural state andes with severe consequences as you''ve just experienced. If you pay attention to Lee you''ll notice that he''s stretching''s out and moving his legs not because he''s warming up but rather trying to adapt to the difference the removal of the weight caused. He''ll surprise you once he''s done." I said and Guy smiled brightly and gave me yet another thumbs up.


    "As expected ofdy Tsunade''s student! You''ve got the gist of it in a single nce!" he said in praise.


    I red at the man though "Don''t think you''re off the hook either mister, I''ve treated you just as much and you abuse your body WAY worse than Lee. Honestly you two are such a headache to have as patients as you rarely actually take my advice." I said irritated.


    "And waste our youth? Never!" the man said with augh.


    "If you''re so eager to stress your body why not go a few rounds with me in the ring once this qualifier tournament is over? I promise I''ll hold back a little." I said with a smile that didn''t reach my eyes.


    Guy visibly paled at the thought and for good reason too as when I sparred with himst time he needed to use the fifth gate just to stop me from using his body as a basketball. I may have been just a little peeved at him and Lee for going behind my back after I treated their bodies for overwork to train. He lived though so it all worked out in the end.

 Broken future

    Broken future


    It was rather funny actually as Guy made a bet with me where I''d leave him and Lee alone about the stress they put their bodies through if he could withstand my full strength for a least five minutes. The man was confident that he had nothing to worry about in this regard and I was more than happy to teach him the error of his thoughts. Even before my growth spurt I matched my sensei in strength but after? It wasn''t even close anymore. Don''t get me wrong she was WAY more skilled at using that power than I was but I now had a considerable amount more than her.-


    The spar started out nice and easy as I kicked Guy through a few trees immediately. The look on his face was hrious though as he no longer had that confident smile but a concerned expression as his forearms that he used to block the kick with bruised horribly.


    "That was only about twenty five percent by the way!" I called over to him before stomping on the ground to rocket towards him.


    "Gate of opening, Open!" Guy immediately burst open the first of the eight gates but it aplished nothing as I mmed my palm into his stomach and threw him into the air before crouching andunching myself up at even greater speeds.


    He blocked my rising kick but hastily opened the second and third gates when I started kicking off the air itself to chase him in mid air. At the third gate Guy was able to withstand roughly half my full physical strength which was quite the achievement in itself. I meant it when I said withstand and not "retaliate". He could block at this level but as the pressure I exerted on him was so overwhelming that was all he could do.-


    Not wanting this to continue he opened the fourth gate and that was where the fun really began. He could finally retaliate and I upped my percentage to seventy percent putting him back in an even worse passive position that before he opened it. Before he could block most of my attacks but now Inded them more often than not. Finally he opened the fifth gate and in doing so matched my seventy percent. I called it there though as any further and I''d likely kill or cripple him and he agreed.-


    He asked how he matched up to my sensei and I told him honestly that he was about equal to her at the fifth gate. In terms of skill they were roughly equal since Guy was a taijutsu specialist and my sensei was not so dedicated to her taijutsu and spent most of her time working on medical stuff instead. She was two generations ahead of him though so the fact he was as skilled as her in that regard was praise worthy in and of itself and I made sure he knew it when I was healing his damaged internal organs.-


    Oh yeah there was a lot of internal damage, expecting any different after getting hit by me is retarded much less getting used as a sandbag. The fact he was able to take my hits at all was testament to how much he had honed his body over the years. Most shinobi would die immediately as they neglected their bodies and focused on ninjutsu or other things. Anyways the moral of the story is that Might Guy had my respect in this regard even if he tended to ignore my medical advice.-


    However thanks to my familiarity with both Guy and Lee''s bodies I was easily able to exin what happened next after Lee got done limating. He elerated at such a speed that he seemed to vanish in the eyes of most here. Gaara raised his guard but couldn''t react in time as Lee hit him with a heel drop forcing him to bow.


    "The hit was too soft." I said honestly with a frown.


    Kakashi nodded in agreement "Lee can''t be med though as who could have guessed that his opponent would use his sand like that?" he said seriously.


    Indeed at first nce it looked like Lee''s attack hadnded cleanly and did some damage but in truth it turned out Gaara was covering his body in a hardyer of sand colored to be indistinguishable from regr skin. All Lee''s attack aplished was to crack this armor and piss Gaara off. The red head began to flood the arena with sand in a tactic that I couldn''t really deny was the best at the moment. The idea was simple really, if he couldn''t use a small area to defend and attack because Lee was moving too fast then he''d turn the entire arena into a death zone.-


    It didn''t matter if Lee was moving too fast to be perceived so long as he touched the sand Gaara would know and be able to use that to block and eventually trap Lee. As I expected that was precisely how the match yed out but the ending was not good at all. Gaara caught Lee and proceeded to break both his legs, arms and body in a way that only three people in the world could fix and even then only with a serious amount of effort, he had effectively crippled Lee.-


    None of us from Konoha were happy about this but we couldn''t do anything about it because Lee hadn''t given up or been knocked out. Only Guy stepping into the arena and forfeiting Lee as his sensei was the match forcible ended. I wasted no time performing on site inspection and treatment to stabilize Lee but i told it to Guy straight.


    "We need my sensei to fix this kind of damage. I can get him to be able to live a normal life but restoring his ability to train is not something I am confident of doing, i''m sorry." I said bowing my head honestly sad at the news.


    I was truly rooting for Lee in my heart so seeing his future broken like this and yet not being able to do anything to fix it despite my own medical prowess hurt.


    "Lee knew the risk when he chose to be a shinobi, we all do. But you said that your sensei could probably fix him didn''t you?" Guy asked seriously and I nodded.


    "I myself know of the procedure that could be used to fix his body and restore his future but I am not confident I can pull it off without killing him." I said honestly


    "How bad are the odds?" Guy asked seriously and I sighed.


    "If I performed it he has a seventy percent chance of dying and if my sensei performed it then I''d say MAYBE a fifty fifty shot of survival and recovery or death. That twenty percent truly makes all the difference in this case." I said honestly.

 Tiring operation and talk with the Hokage

    Tiring operation and talk with the Hokage


    "This procedure must be extremely difficult for the odds to be that low." Kakashi said surprised by my answer.


    "Let me put it this way, only I and my sensei have a CHANCE of pulling it off in the entire world. Lee''s arms and legs aren''t just broken but shattered into dust, even worse he has shards of bones pressing against his spine which if we mess with casually WILL kill him. Add on the organ damage and muscture damage and you might have a clear picture of the level of difficulty i''m talking about right now." I said seriously.


    The mood was terrible after that amongst those from Konoha but I wasn''t watching the fights anymore after that as I worked on doing what I could for Lee in the hospital. This cost me the entire next three days as I kept him in a medic while I worked round the clock to align each fragment of his bones back into ce and lightly activate the cellr fusion there to begin recovery. It was like putting together a million piece puzzle where each of the pieces were different sizes and the smallest being grains of sand.-


    As if that wasn''t bad enough I had to do this all while relying solely on my sense of touch to match the edges of the pieces. This was so hard in fact that I dispelled my mitosis clones so that I could put my entire focus into this task. I of course didn''t waste their chakra but rather funneled it into the medical formation I was using to give me a burst of speed at this task at the cost of overloading the formation. Needless to say once I was done the formation was ruined and needed to be reced but that was a small price to pay in my opinion.-


    Lee wouldn''t be as good as new but at least he''d be able to walk in a week so long as I spent some time each day helping his healing along. Guy, Tenten and Neji were waiting outside the operating room when I walked out almost dead on my feet.


    "How is he?" Guy asked worriedly.


    "I did my best to piece together his bones so in about a week he''ll be able to walk again though barely. He won''t listen to me if I tell him but under no circumstances is he to try and train, it might undo all my effort if he does." I said tiredly.


    "Thank you for your hard work Kenzo. Now go get some rest, you look terrible." Guy said gratefully and I didn''t need to be told twice.


    I left the hospital and flickered to my home before falling t in safety to slumber. Karin was less than happy about the state I was in but didn''t make a huge fuss about it after I exined what happened. She had even audaciously stroked my hair while I rested but I was frankly too tired to care as I passed out.-


    I missed the fight between Sasuke and a shinobi from Oto but I was told the Uchiha won at the cost of his curse mark activating which was problematic apparently as it caused him to be filled with bloodlust and anger. When I eventually woke up from my slumber I was not surprised to find a message scroll from the Hokage requesting my presence at the earliest possible convenience. That was a nice way of saying as soon as I woke the hell up.-


    "Had a good rest I hope?" the old man asked when I walked into his office mid day yawning.


    "I''ll live, though I suppose you wanted to see me about the ceiling and formation I broke?" I asked calmly.


    "The ceiling has been deducted from your mission points already but I am willing to wave the formations cost due to the situation. The reason I summoned you was because of the "guest" you have stashed in your home. You know that it is a serious offense to harbour rogue nin from another vige I take it?" The old man said getting straight to the brass tacks.


    "To be fair I believe you know that this is far from a normal situation. She''s Uzumaki after all." I said not bothered by the usation in his question.


    He sighed "So it''s true then, I had my suspicions after observing her for the past few days but until now I didn''t know for sure. This is a very dangerous game you are ying Kenzo, one wrong move and it won''t just be you that pays for it. That said I believe I understand your n and as such you have my blessing to go ahead with it, AFTER the exams end of course." he said seriously and I nodded in eptance.


    "I wasn''t nning to introduce her to the vige until then anyways but in the meanwhile it would help if you could discreetly acquire and pass me some more clothes for her. The current ones are starting to be a problem and she can''t use mine due to the size difference." I said calmly.


    He nodded "I''ll have one of my trusted guards see to it. From what I have seen I don''t need to worry about the girl betraying the vige like her previous one so I''ll not speak on that." the old man said with a knowing smile that bothered me for some reason like he knew something funny at my expense but I didn''t.


    In the end that trip to the Hokages office was short and sweet which was my favorite kind. Having to deal with the whole ninja organization politics was a hassle but a part of being a shinobi of the leaf so I had to suck it up. I wasn''t surprised to learn that the old man was on board with my poaching of Karin from Kusa. The loss of the Uzumaki n was one of the things I knew he had a lot of regrets about as Konoha under his leadership had not helped the n stop it''s destruction.-


    We simply couldn''t afford to at the time and the other four viges participating in that event did so before we could react to try and help the n. It was actually one of the triggers for the third great shinobi world war as Konoha was recovering from the second and thus trying to keep conflicts to a minimum and our allies paid for it.-


    By the time we realized that the other viges wereunching a joint attack on the Uzumaki n it was toote and thus Uzushiogakure was wiped out scattering survivors of the n across the world. The old man regretted not helping the n more so Karin gave him the perfect excuse to ease his conscience just that smallest amount.

 A break

    A break


    There was a whole month between the qualifier tournament and the real thing which meant all the participants were getting in somest minute training to hopefully give them an edge. Kakashi took Sasuke and vanished for the month while Naruto ended up getting taught by Jiraiya. Lee was not taking his condition well however and insisted that he was willing to do whatever it took to continue being a shinobi but I t out told him that without the procedure it was impossible. I also made it clear that I wasn''t willing to perform the operation as the risk was not worth it in my opinion.-


    During the next month I split my time between helping Karin by bringing her books on medical knowledge, working on my chakra projections and mastering the final B ranked jutsu I was on. Once I was done with the B rank jutsu I wasn''t nning to move onto A rank quite yet. Instead I was going to create a bunch of shadow clones to vastly elerate my improvements on my chakra projection. Right now I could create a stableyer of armor over my hand and forearm but getting past that point was proving to be a tedious process of trial and error.-


    I suppose I shouldn''t really beining considering the technique was easily in the upper limits of A rank at the moment and may in fact reach S rank when Iplete it. Even the old man praised this "gauntlet" of mine as the closest he had ever seen someone get to mimicking a susanoo. The defense of the projection was frankly insane as I had ced struck it as hard as I could without any limitations and I barely managed to crack it.-


    Comparatively my surroundings weren''t so lucky as the power of that strike sent out a shockwave that ttened everything in a fifty yard radius. I escaped in a hurry at that point since this had definitely drawn some attention. Thankfully the damage was nearly identical to a wind release jutsu so the chance of this getting tracked back to me was miniscule. Still that little test told me that once I managed to fully cloak my body in the projection merely injuring me would be an effort in difficulty. It should be remembered that my flesh was nearly as durable as high carbon steel so I was already hard to truly injure but add on the chakra armor and that suddenly became a whole lot harder.-


    I was already halfway done removing the need for handsigns for the water release jutsu i was learning, [Thousand needles of death]. The forty odd handsigns it originally needed to be used was reduced to eighteen at the moment which was still quite a bit but far more reasonable to be used inbat. I had decided to set the copying of my beasts abilities aside for the moment as the ones I was currently on were clearly not something I could copy in a short amount of time.-


    Shiro''s zero release for example was a mix of three different chakra natures and I haven''t even fused two of them together before. Fusing chakra natures wasn''t a joke either as if it were easy there would be a whole lot more shinobi using kekkai genkai running around. The ones we have currently inherited the things instead of getting them via fusion of two natures through effort. There was only a single person currently thought to be able to do so but hadn''t because they chose a different route, the third Hokage.-


    The man had done what few ever have and mastered the use of all of the chakra natures to the highest degree. Rather than try and fuse them however he chose the route ofbination jutsu. This was when you sort ofyered multiple chakra natures together outside your body to get extremely powerful attacks that don''t lose out to kekkai genkai at all. Still I personally think it was a waste that he never tried to create a kekkai genkai or even go further for a kekkai tota.-


    Maybe by the time he was confident in pulling it off he felt he was too old? Whatever the case was the man was the only person recognized as being qualified to fuse chakra natures in the world at the moment which should tell you how hard it is. Anyways I was nowhere near that level of mastery with all the chakra natures. In fact I was not even near that level in one chakra nature since I specialized more in pure chakra control more than anything else. Thankfully that was enough for me to copy most of my beasts abilities.-


    Currently I was working on memorizing the molding of chakra and transformation to water nature that the handsigns for the jutsu caused. It was a matter ofplexity more than anything else as I needed all the little changes each handsign made to pull off the jutsu. Naturally I was simultaneously getting faster and faster at releasing the jutsu the more I memorized how the chakra was molded. It was sort of bing like muscle memory really as I got most of the molding done automatically and the handsigns now only cover the part I hadn''t memorized yet.-


    Karin was also making slow progress in learning medical information since unlike me she couldn''t learn and retain arge amount of information in a short period of time. She was dedicated though I''ll give her that as she spent the vast majority of the day reading the information I brought her all while training her chakra control by sticking coins to her body. At the end of the day we ate a meal that I prepared for us before going to bed and repeating the process the next day. She didn''tin about being cooped up in my house though which was surprising since most people would be going stir crazy by this point.-


    "But you''re here though?" she said with an odd look when I asked her about it.


    "Surely you miss being able to just walk around and do stuff right?" I asked confused.


    "I mean not really? Back at Kusagakure I was mostly locked in my room to begin with so I just got used to it. Havingpany is a nice step up for me." she said with a smile that hurt to see.


    That wasn''t a nice thing to hear at all and if anything made me feel bad for keeping her here like this.


    "Hey you know how to use the transformation jutsu right?" I asked having an idea.


    "Of course, it''s one of the three jutsu all shinobi are supposed to know, why?" she asked curiously.


    "Turn into someone else and I''ll show you my favorite ce to eat in the whole vige." I said with a smile as her face lit up.

 A break(2)

    A break(2)


    But then her face became conflicted "But what if someone finds out? Would that cause you to get in trouble?" she asked concerned.


    I shook my head "It may sound arrogant of me but I guarantee that nobody will care so long as I vouch for you. Not to brag but i''m something of a famous figure in the vige at this point." I said honestly.


    "Really? Why?" she asked surprised.


    "My sensei is Tsunade Senju and in addition to that I regrly appear at the hospital and use my medical skills to heal others. That alone gives me quite a lot of recognition but then you add on my beasts and I can be considered quite famous in the vige." I said with a grin.


    "The greatest medical ninja in the world is your sensei!? And you''ve just been sitting here and letting me learn from books!?" she eximed in offense.


    I shrugged "I had to learn from those same books so why wouldn''t you? Besides it''s not like you can get a lot of practical experience in here now can you?" I asked and she stopped to think about it for a moment before sighing in disappointment.


    After that she used the transformation jutsu to change her hair color and facial features but left the rest alone at my suggestion. The reason for this was because there was honestly no point in her performing full body transformation when no one would be able to identify her with just her hair and face transformed. It was actually easier to tell when the transformation jutsu was used when you went full body as any shinobi worth that name would notice the inconsistencies that are inevitable with suchrge scale transformations.-


    Obviously you could just spend the extra effort to perfect your transformation but really unless you were on an espionage mission or something like that it was a waste of time. It was easier and more time effective to do what I had Karin do and use a mirror to fix the consistencies of her head transformation and that''s it. Her chosen form wasn''t even all thatplicated either as she shortened her hair while turning it in brown while changing a few details of her facial structure so that you couldn''t tell she was who she actually was even if you knew what she originally looked like.-


    "So um do you take other girls to out like this?" she asked fidgeting as we left my house secretly.


    I tilted my head in confusion at it though "I haven''t thought about it but I suppose you would be the first, why?" I asked.


    "No reason!" she said hurriedly but had a happy look that confused me.


    Soon enough we left the forest and entered the vige proper where I started taking it slow as I showed her around.


    "Over there is the best cksmith in the vige, and that''s a famous dango shop that is pretty popr with the kunoichi of the vige. Never saw the appeal myself." I said pointing as we went.


    "Eh? Kenzo is that you?" a semi-familiar voice called out in surprise from nearby and I turned to see who it was.


    It turned out to be Shikamaru who had his hands full with grocery bags.


    "Your mom send you out to restock up on groceries?" I asked with a chuckle.


    He sighed tiredly "Yeah, it''s a real drag man. What about you though, who''s your friend here?" he asked curiously as he eyed Karin.


    "A friend I''m showing around from out of the vige is all." I said honestly.


    "A friend eh? Well if Kenzo''s vouching for you you should be decent enough I suppose, he tends to know what he''s doing after all. I''ll leave you to it though as my mom''ll kill me if I take too long getting back." Shikamaru said casually before walking away.


    "See I told you." I said with a grin to Karin who was nervous after Shikamaru easily figured out she was in disguise.


    "So people just see you involved with something out of ce and ept it, just like that?" she asked in astonishment.


    "Just like that." I said with a nod.


    We continued walking through the vige as I pointed out all the things I thought she should know if she was going to live here in the future. We ran into a few more people that knew me and after the third time someone chose to just ept her presence after I vouched for her she rxed. We got to the ramen shop at about five or so and the ce was like usual empty.


    "Ah Kenzo wee! And what''s this you even brought a youngdy with you today, my you kids grow up so fast!" Teuchi said with a smile and augh.


    "Nothing like that, we''re just friends." I said shaking me head.


    "Sure sure, so you getting the usual today?" Teuchi asked with a chuckle.


    "Give me the chasu special with extra onions this time, same amount as usual though." I said while taking a seat at the counter.


    "Got it! And for you youngdy?" Teuchi asked with a smile.


    Karin looked at me worriedly "I don''t have any money though?" she said bothered.


    "Don''t worry about it, my treat so go nuts." I said with a reassuring smile.


    Go nuts she did too. Three bowls of crane special and two of the mushroom ramen with added chicken cutlets. Teuchi like the master of ramen he was had the first bowls for both of us out in two minutes tops and then slowed down with the perfect timing of the next bowls so we got them right as we finished our previous bowls. Karin was all smiles as we ate and it was clear that the love of ramen might be an Uzumaki thing though Teuchi could just be that good at what he does, hard to tell.-


    Once we were done eating I paid for the meal and we had to lose the Root shinobi tailing us in the vige before we snuck back to my house for the night. Karin was in a great mood for the next week at least after that little outing and I always caught her smiling to herself as she read her books. For me it was back to business as usual as I worked on mastering the water release jutsu to the point of not needing handsigns anymore.-


    By the end of the week I had lowered it to four handsigns and by my reckoning that meant in another day or two I will finish it up. Once I had that taken care of I just needed to learn at least one A rank elemental ninjutsu for me to confidently say that I was truly at Jonin level across the board. My taijutsu was in S rank like Guy''s and my sensei''s due to my body but I was honestly much weaker in almost every other regard with medical ninjutsu not counting since that was not abat skill.

 Concerns

    Concerns


    My biggest issue was that Ickedbat experience against enemies that could genuinely threaten me. I had some of course but not nearly as much as any normal shinobi would by the time they climbed up to my level. In a way you could say I was suffering from sess as my power was simply growing far faster than my skill was. It was almost funny to be honest as I trained hard to try and keep my skill roughly equal to my power but it was difficult.-


    I was also starting to have an issue that I hadn''t anticipated but made sense to a degree. People were starting to fear me. Not because I was doing anything violent or evil or something like that but because I was getting too powerful too fast. The ns were starting to either butter me up or keep their distance from me. There were even vague rumors of Madara and Hashirama beingpared to me. I couldn''t even say that theseparisons were unfounded either as in terms of growth and talent I was historically speakparable to those two legendary figures.-


    At my age they were both extremely powerful as well and it only got worse the older they got until they died. Despite all the good having such a figure in the vige achieved everyone was also right to fear another showing up. Having a powerful shinobi was good but the problem came in when that same shinobi was so powerful that they couldn''t be stopped if they went on a rampage. Madara Uchiha had shown this when he decided that Konoha deserved to be destroyed and was only able to be stopped because the first Hokage was just as powerful.-


    No one was under the delusion that should the first Hokage not have been around that the vige wouldn''t have ceased to exist then and there. Unlike then however there was no one in the vige that was as powerful as those two so if I indeed became that powerful I had no counter. Knowing that created and heavy shadow for the ns that remembered the first Hokage and Madara. The ns were in a bind at the moment as on one hand they were happy to see someone so talented in the vige again but on the other they were terrified about potential disaster from allowing me to grow fully.-


    I wasn''t worried however as even if some of the ns caved in and tried to kill me off it was far toote now to seed. I might not be able to win against a whole squad of elite jonin and jonin by myself but I was confident about surviving. I was VERY fast and durable and even had a beast that could literally teleport untraceably. If I chose to escape nothing short of the Hokage or someone on that level had any hope of stopping me.-


    Even if I ended up chased from the vige like that however I had no intentions of trying to get revenge or something stupid like that. Sure I can hold a grudge something fierce but what would destroying the vige prove besides that they were justified in their fear of me? No I''d rather just wander the world like my sensei does collecting beasts and eventually iming a ce for myself to settle down and livefortably. I was a sage so the requirements for such a location were rather easy to fulfil. I just needed food, water and an abundance of natural energy to be fairlyfortable.-


    It would be easy to just make or import anything else I might want since it was stuff that existed literally all over the ce. Hypothetical situation aside I was pretty sure that I was going to be left alone like usual so long as I didn''t suddenly change my personality. I was pretty much a recluse and everyone knew it. I didn''t bother anyone really or have any political ambitions to be seen anywhere. I might as well not exist for all the impact I actually had on the vige.-


    Hell my beasts had more of a presence in the vige than I did what with my cat, hawk and Shiro all more or less being there all day. Amongst those three only my cat and Shiro were even noticeable as my hawk just sort of existed in the airspace above the vige. As a developed area the thermals for gliding above the ce effectively allowed it to just like perpetually glide overhead with no effort on it''s part. Shiro stood out a lot but was practically a mascot to the vigers that was very well treated. My cat on the otherhand was a damn menace to society as it LOVED stealing food from ninjas.-


    It didn''t attack anyone really but I can''t even begin to count the amount ofints against the little thief I have received over the years. Still it''s antics were taken with a grain of humor by the vige since it wasn''t actually harming anyone but more just pranking them. Even the Hokage got in on it by posting a C rank mission to reward anyone who managed to capture the thing, no one had seeded yet. Anyway I should get back to talking about the month long break till the tournament.-


    Like expected Ipletely mastered the water release jutsu a couple days after my prediction and got to work on my chakra projection with shadow clones. An interesting discovery I found out was that I could actually make more shadow clones the more mitosis clones I had active. Reason being that each body I had via the technique had it''s own chakra reserve and ability to use jutsu so the chakra division of the shadow clone jutsu worked on the clones supply rather than my own. Effectively meaning I could summon my max number of shadow clones with a mitosis clone with spending a drop of my own chakra.-


    The downside to this discovery was just as big however as if I summoned so many shadow clones I got all of their memories when they were dispelled. That was to say HUNDREDS of memories in an instant. How the hell Naruto could handle that was beyond me as when I tried it I was pretty sure I had a minor aneurism. Still I could handle a couple dozen shadow clones at once if I timed the dispelling just right. So that was what I did to train my chakra projection, I had about twenty of my shadow clones working on it.-


    I never kept them active longer than six hours at a time though to keep the strain to a minimum. The best part was that the moment one clone dispelled them self all the clones and I got whatever knowledge they got from the training they did. This led to over time a cumtive snowballing effect of many small breakthrough creating the effect of arge one. By the time the date for the tournament was arriving I had managed to create an entire sleeve of chakra armor that even extended to my shoulder de and pectoral region.

 Start of the tournament

    Start of the tournament


    It was bing increasingly difficult to expand the chakra projection beyond it''s current size the further I refined the technique. The biggest issue I wasing to face was the absolutely monstrous amount of chakra control needed to use it. For most jutsu or techniques involving chakra there was a certain rule of thumb that applied. Basically a jutsu must either be vague in what it did or only require a small area of chakra exertion. This was why even jutsu like [water dragon bullet] only created vague constructs that followed specific rules that were simple to understand.-


    Techniques that broke this rule of thumb like my own or Narutos porcupine like technique came at heavy costs and difficulty as a result. Generally however the trade off was well worth it as these same jutsu and techniques tend to be very powerful. My own work in progress [chakra armor] technique was considered high A ranked and it wasn''t even a quarterplete! Narutos technique was probably also A ranked though on the lower end of the spectrum because it wasn''t all that powerful but had a bunch of utility.-


    Anyways the vige was getting rather crowded as merchants and foreign shinobi came to watch and bet on the tournament. Amongst them were the Fourth Kazekage and the wind Daimyo who were in an awkward position. It was sort of an open secret but the fourth Kazekage and current Wind Daimyo did NOT get along. Supposedly the reason for this was because the Kazekage named Rasa had sent one of the Suna''s most powerful shinobi on a suicide mission because she was a threat to his reign as Kazekage. I was of course referring to Pakura of the scorch release who was an elite jonin of Suna that was very close to being an S ranked ninja.-


    Her power and respected war history meant that she could vie for control over the vige with Rasa and so he had her sent on an "ambassador" mission in thend of water but betrayed her causing her death but ming the matter on Iwagakure(hidden stone). The wind Daimyo was VERY unhappy with this since not only was Pakura an amazingly powerful and talented kunoichi but she was also someone the man knew as a friend. As a result of Rasa''s decision the Daimyo started cutting Suna off from funding via missions and political support effectively starving the vige.-


    Rasa was lucky however as he was a user of the ma release kekkai genkai and specifically could control and manipte gold sand. Thanks to this he was able to drag out gold from the desert sands that he sold to fund the vige and keep it afloat if only just. Unlike the fire Daimyo I whole heartedly approved of the wind Daimyo on my first meeting. His clothes were bulking and covered him in a way that made it difficult to notice but he was not some untrained scrub and had some power to him.-


    Nothing extreme but from his chakra reserve and muscture I''d estimate that he was easily as strong a upper rank chunin. He also wasn''t some wishy washy minded person like the fire Daimyo and but clearly a man who knew what the hell his job was and did it with a firm will, I approved. The Kazekage gave me chills however when I first met him. His gaze was cold and almost predatory and his chakra reserves were veryrge though less than the Hokages. I also got this weird sense of deja vu when I saw him.-


    I couldn''t quite put my finger on it though so I just filed him under "avoid unless absolutely necessary" and moved on. I checked with the bookies that were hosting the gambling this time and saw the odds for the participants. I hedged my bets a little and put fifty thousand ryo on Shikamaru, Gaara, Naruto, Sasuke and Neji. Shikamaru had five to one odds, Naruto had twenty to one odds, Gaara had fifty to one odds just like Sasuke. Neji had slightly better odds than Naruto at thirty to one odds.-


    It was pretty obvious that most people believed that Sasuke and Gaara were going to be the onespeting for the top spot in the tournament before it even started. Personally I thought Shikamaru was getting rather unfortunately disregarded when his ns technique was a threat to everyone except maybe Gaara who only needed his mind to control his sand. The [shadow puppetry] jutsu was nasty in that it forced the one it was used on to do as the user does. This meant that if you had a pouch of kunai in a spot Shikamaru didn''t he could force you to draw one and slit your own throat with it without any risk to himself.-


    The catch to that just however was that if the person who it was used on was much stronger than Shikamaru himself then the just could be fought against and even broken free from since it forced Shikamaru to experience the strain of the other person. The jutsu also required the user to have a shadow to stretch to be used. It probably didn''t need to be said but the Nara n were nightmares to deal with at night.-


    The tournament was in single elimination format so a bad match up meant you lost, period. The first round of match up was interesting as well when they were finally announced to open the betting pool on them. It was Naruto VS Neji, Temari VS Shikamaru, Kankuro VS Shino and Sasuke VS Gaara. I wasted no time at all dropping fifty million on Naruto to win even though they gave him one hundred to one odds of it. That was an extremelyrge amount of money but I was confident that my friend was going to introduce Neji to the ground after what the Hyuga did to Hinata.-


    Everyone looked at me like I was an idiot for putting so much money on a losing bet but I wasn''t going to exin myself to these people.


    "You sure is was a good idea to put so much money on Naruto to win like that? Neji is quite the prodigy you know?" Guy asked curiously.


    "I know he''s talented but he did the one thing you don''t want to do if you hope to beat Naruto, piss him off. That guys stubborn as a mountain as far as staying down is concerned if you get him angry." I said honestly.


    "Sounds like a Neji might really have his work cut out for him then. For what it''s worth try not to be too harsh on him, his situation is not a pleasant one." Guy said seriously.


    "I don''t me him forshing out like he did given his situation but he went too far with Hinata." I said calmly and Guy nodded in agreement.

 Turnaround

    Turnaround


    The fight started out with Naruto and Neji trading banter as Naruto started speaking his disapproval at Neji''s actions. Neji didn''t just take it either and sent back insults and other things that he really shouldn''t have said. Amongst them was that the only reason Naruto got where he was today was because of me. I''ll be honest and say that I definitely had my part to y in Naruto''s current self but majority? Not a chance. All I did was help my friend have the same teachings and knowledge as he would have if the vige hadn''t mistreated him.-


    Pretty much everything else though was gotten via his own determination and hard work. If anything Neji was way more spoilt growing up as even with the caged bird seal he still had the resources of the Hyuga at his disposal due to being so closely rted to the main n. Naruto on the other hand just had the public stuff and me. Lets be honest here though I barely taught Naruto anything besides perhaps the chakra threads and chakra control methods as far as being a shinobi was concerned.-


    His path as a ninja was not my own or even simr for that matter so I didn''t bother trying to teach him my stuff. Naruto proved this himself when he activated his self created technique to keep Neji from hitting his chakra points. The Hyuga n was usually the nemesis of anything chakra based like that but it was an entirely different thing when the technique had a chakra pool like Narutos fueling it. At that point quality is no longer enough to ovee quantity, something Neji was learning the hard way at this moment after getting caught by the many threads covering Naruto.-


    Sure Neji could cut through for or five of these restricting threads but ten, twenty or thirty? Not a chance. There was no mercy until Neji learned his lesson as far as Naruto was concerned and the beating the blonde gave Neji was downright humiliating. The Hyuga certainly tried to fight back but that was rather difficult when Naruto had one arm locked in ce with his threads and was using his own free hands to punch the guy as hard as he could over and over. Unfortunately Naruto miscalcted the cost that his technique had when it had a Hyuga resisting it constantly and he couldn''t keep it up anymore freeing Neji who retaliated furiously with the sixty four palms.-


    For any normal person that would be the end of the fight as they would either be dead or chakra crippled temporarily. I almost stepped in when Naruto stubbornly drew from his already heavily depleted chakra pool and rather than use his own chakra started drawing out the nine tails power. The winds howled and the older shinobi who had experienced the things power before all tensed. Then it vanished just as fast as it showed up and I couldn''t help but grin as I figured out what he did.-


    It was simply really as Neji had closed all of Narutos chakra points and my friend being a wily bastard utilized the rush of power from the nine tails to pop them back open forcibly. In the same instance he utilized that chakra in it''s entirety to summon a bunch of shadow clones as a distraction. Neji arrogantly thought that Naruto was amongst these clones and rushed into them confidently. He hadn''t thought it was a trick however and as such hadn''t used his byakugan to see that the real Naruto was in fact under the ground.-


    Needless to say Naruto hit to arrogant dude with a vicious uppercut that was so hard it threatened to snap Neji''s neck. Like that Naruto won much worse for wear while getting his point across to Neji through his fist.


    "You know you could have just overwhelmed him with your shadow clones right?" I asked my friend as I treated his wounds.


    "Haha, now that you mention it ..." heughed awkwardly and smiled while scratching the back of his head.


    "Ha~ Sometimes I wonder if you even have a brain rattling up there with how rarely you seem to use it." I said with a tired sigh.


    "Hey! you take that back!" I he argued and I just raised and eyebrow with a smirk.


    "Or what?" I said challengingly.


    "Uh you know , on second thought." he said quickly realizing the trap and backing out.


    "I thought so." I said smugly.


    The second battle came up shortly after they cleaned up the arena a little and this time it was between Temari and Shikamaru. I didn''t bother watching the fight though as I was far more interested in grabbing my payout from Narutos fight with Neji. The bookies tried to y it slimy like they didn''t know what I was talking about until I made it clear that wasn''t going to be a very good idea.-


    I ended up walking away with a nifty five billion ryo and some bookies with bruises in painful locations. It would have been one thing if they just gave me back my money but they acted like they never got it to begin with which was absolutely uneptable. I thought it was rather amusing how I came up here not expecting to win all that much money only to walk away with enough money to be considered entry level rich.-


    I could lose literally every other bet I made and still be happy with this oue.


    "Since you won so much money off of me how''s about ramens on you for the next month?" Naruto asked and Guy looked away guiltily after I returned.


    "A months doable." I said with a shrug.


    "What? I thought you''d put up more of a fight you know?" Naruto said confused.


    "Guy probably let it slip that I won a bunch of money off your fight but he probably didn''t tell you how much I won. Forget a month I could easily afford to feed you to bursting everyday for a year without using a third of what I won. Should have asked for more when you had the chance." I said with a grin.


    Naruto didn''t believe me at first but after Guy told him how much I won the boy looked heartbroken as I wasn''t exaggerating at all. About sixrge bowls made the way he liked cost about twenty thousand ryo and you multiply that by three hundred and sixty four and you got seven million two hundred and eighty thousand ryo for an entire years worth of ramenpared to my five billion.-


    The next fight for the tournament was Shino VS Kankuro and was a joke to say the least. I''m not hating on puppets or anything but against a swarm of thousands of insects they were about as useful as flyswatters against mosquitoes in Florida. Kankuro was quickly overwhelmed by the bugs and eliminated from the tournament before he could even force Shino to really try.

 Final fight and betrayal

    Final fight and betrayal


    Next up was Sasuke VS Gaara and there was quite a lot of discussion as sasuke and Kakashi were both missing still. There was rapidly spreading spection that Sasuke was avoiding Gaara but I knew it was nonsense.


    "They will show up right before Sasuke gets disqualified, watch" I said with a chuckle.


    Kakashi always had this thing about being fashionablyte to nearly any event and I doubted the man wasn''t aware of the time the match was set to start roughly.


    "Speak of the devil and he will arrive." I added as I sensed Sasuke and Kakashi shoot into the arena as the ref started counting down.


    "Sorry about that, we got a little carried away in somest minute training." the silver haired ninja said apologetically.


    "Since he has arrived before the countdown could end he may still participate." the ref said seriously and Kakashi flickered up to the stands where we were sitting.


    "What did I miss?" he asked and Guy started filling him in.


    "I hope you know what you are doing teaching Sasuke that technique." I said seriously once Guy was done talking.


    "Oh? And what gave it away?" Kakashi asked surprised.


    "I''m a sensor remember? Not only that but I also mastered lightning chakra nature transformation so I know the signs when I see them." I said calmly.


    "I see, well do keep it to yourself since I don''t want to ruin the surprise." he said with a smile through his mask.


    "You never answered me you know." I pointed out.


    "As a sensei it is my job to give him the best chance of victory and that seemed like the only option against Gaara''s defenses with the time we had." kakashi said honestly.


    Everyone else nearby was listening in to this conversation but only a few seemed to realize what we were talking about.


    The match started and it became clear that at first Sasuke went the same route as Lee and was using taijutsu to try and overwhelm Gaara. It worked a little but Gaara wasn''t the sort to fall for the same trick twice and after taking a few blows that cracked his sand armor he created a thick sphere of sand around him that turned spikey went touched or gotten near. It was also clear that this sphere was leagues harder than the sand armor as Sasuke bounced off it without any effect.-


    "What sort of training did you do? To reach such a level of taijutsu in only a month...?" Guy asked confused and concerned.


    "Sasuke copied Lees taijutsu with his sharingan and Kakashi just trained his body to a state that it could be used, am I right?" I asked and Kakashi nodded.


    "It''s not as though his taijutsu has suddenly reached such a level in such a short time but as you''ve said that he is merely utilizing a mimicry, a fake. That wasn''t all he learned though." Kakashi said without looking away from the fight.


    "Speaking of, it looks like he''s about to use it." I said after sensing the change in Sasukes chakra after he ran up the wall of the arena.


    The boy started making handsigns and a crackle of lightning began to appear in his left palm.


    "TZERRRR!"


    The cries of thousands of birds sounded out as the wild and dense lightning chakra manifested on his palm. Sasuke wasted no time charging down the wall leaving a gouged out line of damage as he went. It was a straight line that he ran and Gaara went to spike him with his sand but Sasuke dodged them and thrust the lightning covered palm into and through the sand sphere.-


    "BLOOD! IT''S MY BLOOD!" Gaara screamed and Sasuke retreated warily after a strange tan and ck "thing" shot out of the hole he made at him.


    It retreated back into the hole like a snake and I stood up seriously as I felt the changee over Gaara.


    "Ready yourselves, the tailed beast is awakening." I said seriously as I summoned my staff from my storage scroll.


    Those that knew what I was talking about tensed and got ready while the shinobi who didn''t such as most of my ssmates took my word for it and readied themselves. The sand fell from around Gaara and he was panting and looked to be on the verge of a breakdown. At this exact moment All hell broke loose as feathers fell from the sky putting most here under a genjutsu as the Suna ninjas betrayed us and started their attack. The Kazekage snatched up the old man and locked himself in a barrier with just the two of them before revealing himself to actually be Orochimaru in disguise.-


    Baki, the jonin who came with the Suna genin, jumped into the arena with Gaaras siblings who took the redhead and fled. Sasuke gave chase to finish the job off against Gaara who was now a genuine enemy. On my end of things however I broke out of the genjutsu instantly and took down the three Suna ninjas in anbu disguises alongside Kakashi and Guy.


    "This is gonna suck for all these people but we need them up!" I said seriously before pping my hands as hard as I could.


    The air broke between my palms like ss and the shockwave hit everyone hard enough to hurt which was the n. Actual physical pain was all that was needed to snap out of genjutsu and there was a bunch of unconscious ninjas here who we needed to be awake and pulling their weight.


    "Crude but we don''t have time to argue." Kakashi said seriously as he started to help those waking up from the genjutsu to understand the situation.


    "I''m going to summon my beasts to help around the vige before going to help the assault on the barrier!" I said seriously as I jumped into the arena.


    "Get it done but don''t exhaust yourself either, we will need all the healers we can get after this is over!" Kakashi called after me.


    I sent a thumbs up as I dropped into the arena where the ref and Baki were duking it out and the suna ninja looked at me cautiously. I ignored him however and used chakra flow to cut open my thumb before rapidly moving through the summoning jutsu handsigns. The Suna ninja''s eye widened and he charged me in an attempt to stop me but it was toote as I mmed my palm down onto the arena floor creating a massive amount of smoke.-


    When the smoke cleared all of my beasts could be seen in the arena minus my caterpir that was still in it''s cocoon.


    "Konoha is under attack, defend the vige while hunting the enemies!" I yelled from my ce on myrgest beasts(Kuma) head.


    My beasts all sounded off before rushing out to follow mymands with the exception of Kuma who was smart enough to realize that if I was standing on him that I had something else in mind for him.


    "Smash this ninja here Kuma!" Imanded while pointing at Baki and the bear turned a bloodthirsty gaze on the man and roared.

 Rampage

    Rampage


    Kuma might bezy most of the time but just like any other bear he could be absolutely terrifying when he decided he didn''t like you. Even without his ability to turn sunlight into a beam of pure destruction the mere fact he was the size of a hill and all of it was muscle meant that when he stood up and roared you felt it. Baki had an ugly expression on his face and moved to dodge as Kuma mmed down his left paw in the location the guy was previously standing.-


    The force alone shook the entire arena and sent cracks over the entire ce as the center of the arena cratered and exploded.


    "Try and keep the destruction to a minimum Kuma!" Imanded since otherwise the bear would choose to directly tten the vige if it meant he got the single ninja he was after.


    Restraint was not something Kuma was good at but that was precisely why I summoned him, I didn''t need restraint but pure power. I had read about the type of barrier currently being used to keep the old man contained with Orochimaru, [The four corners sealing barrier].-


    The way it worked made it a tricky thing to take down in any reasonable amount of time. Basically it used four people to fuel it from the four corners in sort of istion bubbles if you would. The trick however was that any attack was born by all four of these people which greatly reduces the amount of strain they experienced as a result. This meant there were three main ways to get past the barrier and they each took a certain amount of time. The first was by having a seal master work to counter seal their way in which took the longest.-


    The second was to effectively boil the barrier by bathing it in weak but constant attacks that over time caused an ever increasing buildup of strain on those fueling the barrier. The final option was the one I decided to take where you simply hit it as hard as possible as many times as you could putting a massive amount of strain on those fueling it if you were hitting hard enough. If there was one thing that Kuma and I had plenty of it was raw power.-


    Anyways I didn''t just sit still while Kuma tried to kill the elite Jonin from Suna but was currently releasing the seals I had on to keep my strength under control. They were specifically made to be difficult to remove so that they didn''t identally slip off while I trained or was inbat but that was getting in the way at the moment. I couldn''t exactly be med either as I wasn''t expecting that I''d NEED to take them off in the vige but here we are. I had already gotten the first two off which released my strength up to seventy five percent and I was on thest two that held off thest twenty five percent.-


    Kuma''s biggest weakness was starting to rear it''s head though as the Suna Shinobi discovered that he was slow for all that power. Not to the point were he wasn''t a serious threat but to the point it was totally possible to dodge his attacks that were well telegraphed. As a result Kuma was wrecking the arena in an attempt to crush the annoying shinobi while everyone had already been evacuated by the Konoha shinobi that I woke up.-


    The rest of the vige wasn''t doing so hot either as shinobi shed in the streets while citizens hid. The damage was being kept to a minimum but we were on the backfoot since we were trying to fight off the enemies while also preventing civilian casualties. My beasts though were proving their value as they ughtered their way through the enemies in the vige brutally. Shiro left frozen statue corpses while Mizuhe and Akasha sliced up the bodies in an instant with assassination style attacks. My hawk and Kiba(the wolfdog) harassed the enemies with wind des and lightning fast attacks respectively.-


    My cat, snake and turtle were all working with the vige shinobi to protect the evacuating citizens while Ren was with the sheep running interference on the shinobi that had been waiting to attack from the surrounding forests. It was blowing up and killing the trees but that was a small price to pay to stall any enemy reinforcements. The sheep''s ability was nightmarish to face in a ce like the surrounding forest where it could step on any branch, patch of grass, rock or tree multiple times as it ran through the area. Even worse was that unless you were a sensor you''d never know unless you activated one or saw where the sheep stepped.-


    Ren wasn''t much better as a massive scorpion that was flooding the surrounding forest with poison mist. Even if you used an antidote for the poison it was still corrosive and that meant you still had an issue just being exposed to the stuff over time. Konoha didn''t just have me and my beasts though but hundreds of jonin and chunin all fighting fiercely for their home. The only people suspiciously absent however were the root shinobi that followed Danzo Shimura as well as the Shimura n.-


    Anyways after running around for a whole minute to avoid Kuma''s attacks Baki finally slipped up after the ref threw a kunai at him and got smashed into paste under Kuma''s paw. At the same time I had gotten rid of my seals and was stretching in ce to get reacquainted with my full power.


    "To the barrier Kuma!" I called and my bear lumbered up the side of the arena onto the nearby roof that had the barrier on it. "Take it down!" Imanded as I jumped off his head.


    The inside of the barrier was not looking good either as there was wood growths all over the ce and the sound of fightinging from within it. The barrier itself was still holding strong though even when Kuma started hitting it over and over again. I flickered over to one of the corners to peer in at the one fueling it which was a dude with multiple arms in this case. I took a wide solid stance and pulled back my fist while rotating my shoulder while the guy just held his handsign and watched with a mocking look that irritated me.


    "KABOOM!"


    The air exploded as I threw a full power punch right at the barrier that was in front of his face. The moment my fist struck the barrier that mocking look vanished as it was reced with horror as a tiny crack appeared on the barrier for the briefest moment.


    "BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!"


    I started hammering the barrier over and over again at full strength and sweat started to appear on the mans face as he and the other three dealt with the onught of power from Kuma and I. A scream rang out from the inner part of the barrier however and the four abandoned their posts to rush towards the source with me in hot pursuit.

 Harsh loss and Bounty

    Harsh loss and Bounty


    I arrived at about the same time as the four fueling the barrier did and what I found was not good at all. The old man was dying and I could tell immediately that there was no saving him. it''s hard to describe but it was as though his soul was slipping away to somewhere else and I don''t mean in a normal manner either. The four fueling the barrier took Orochimaru who for ack of a better word looked broken. Not dead but like something critical to him had been stolen and he lost some of his will to live.-


    I didn''t try to stop them as my full focus was on trying to keep the old man alive for as long as possible but it was an uphill battle that I was badly losing.


    "*Cough* You are wasting your time Kenzo *cough* The reaper will have his prize, theres no denying it now." the old man sucked in a raspy breath. "Listen, I have long prepared for my death. *Cough* In my home I left a envelope hidden in a secret ce next to my bed *Cough* Above the picture of my wife. Open it and give it to whoever bes Hokage next and as a final warning, beware Danzo. He will act against you now that I am gone but I believe that you will do what is best for the vige. It has been my honor to watch you and Naruto grow up*Cough* A shame I''ll not see the great men you''ll be." and like that the third Hokage breathed hisst.


    With his death the monkey king Enma disappeared with a silent mournful look as the summoning ended. I won''t lie it stung at my heart to see the old man go and tears filled my eyes. As though the world felt the same rain began to fall from the clouds overhead as more and more shinobi arrived after subjugating the Suna forces in the vige. The entire vige mourned the man and the losses we suffered on this while Shikaku took over temporarily as the acting Hokage until a new one could be appointed. I did as the old man asked of me in his final moments and went to his home in secret to retrieve the envelop as he said and what I learned from it disgusted and disturbed me.-


    Within it held the evidence and list of crimes that Danzo had done over the years as well as the information on the true motivations of Sasukes brother Itachi. I could understand why the old man would keep this stuff out of the other information in his office, it was dangerous. It was also likely to cause a civil war within Konoha since depending on who became the next Hokage Danzo was going to get outed and possibly turned into a missing nin. The matter of Itachi however needed to be buried for the good of the vige because it was far too divisive.-


    It was discovered that the fourth Kazekage had actually been killed and reced with Orochimaru and so Suna epted unconditional surrender. The vige didn''t press the matter further than that as it was clear to all that Orochimaru had manipted them without their knowledge. I ended up getting dragged into the politics of the matter of the next Hokage for one simple reason, I was there when the old man died. The sheer amount of weight that gave my opinion on the matter can not be underestimated.-


    Not that I really had to say anything as it was all but unanimous that one of the old mans students would take over as Hokage and Jiraiya directly said my sensei was the only option that made sense. Really the only input I had to add was thest known ce her infrequent messages to me said she was. Danzo also tried to make a move on me but failed as I had already packed up my whole house and moved it to a different location in the forest. I was willing to bide my time against the man until the next Hokage was officially appointed.-


    It wouldn''t be toote the deal with him at that point when I had the full support of the vige behind me. He seemed to realize this as well if the res he sent my way every time I was summoned to the council chamber was anything to go by. The third Hokages death wasn''t all bad news though as we struck back against Orochimaru with a vengeance and easily must have cost the snake a massive amount of resources lost as we ripped through thend of fire and even further for any sign of him and his bases.-


    None of the other great viges wanted to get in our way as they had learnt from experience that we were most dangerous when recklessly motivated like this. The man hunt for the snake sannin led to a veryrge amount of missing nin in thend of fire getting killed in the crossfire which funneled arge amount of funds into the vige from the bounties on them. That was the interesting part about the bounty system, anyone including the vige that posted the bounties enemies could cash them in.-


    The reason for this was mostly because in exchange for some money the other viges could get a heads up if a dangerous shinobi appeared in another vige. It was actually one of the reasons I never went bounty hunting as while all the viges knew I was the student of Tsunade Senju they didn''t know what mybat strength was. Hell most of Konoha didn''t know how strong I was or even had a guess for that matter. That all changed on the day the Hokage died as the spies in the vige as well as the vigers themselves had witnessed the power I had at my disposal.-


    It came as little surprise then to learn that I now had an entry in the bingo book(book of bounties, gets updated every month). I was given an A-S ranking and a bounty of two million ryo in every vige other than Suna and of course Konoha. They had my information on my known feats and skills as , chakra beast taming, massive chakra reserves, extreme strength, extreme Iryonin jutsu and sensor type ability. They even had an entire page dedicated to all my known beasts and their threat level, abilities and even individual bounties for each beast if someone somehow managed to kill one and bring proof.-


    The bounty for shiro was ironically WAY higher than my own at a staggering fifty million ryo and his ability was listed as a highly suspected kekkai tota. It came as little surprise that literally none of the other viges wanted to see such an ability show up in Konoha. I found it a bit funny where they couldn''t even agree on whether I was an A or S rank threat shinobi so they just put both.

 Incursion

    Incursion


    A week after my bounty was posted Konoha got some visitors that it really didn''t want. I was not in the vige at the time since I was trying toy low while Danzo was trying to find me. ording to what I heard though Itachi Uchiha and Kisame Hoshigaki simply walked into the vige wearing long ck cloaks with red clouds on them and wide low rimmed bamboo hats. That was how bad security was after the old man died, that two S rank missing nin could just freely waltz into the vige.-


    It was no lie to say we were so weak that such individuals felt no fear or hesitation to just walk right in. While on paper the loss of the old man didn''t really drop our power as while we lost an S rank shinobi we got another in the form of myself. The ugly truth however was that our threat level had dramatically dropped with his passing. I was a threat sure but the old man was a much much greater one for the simple amount of versatility he had. Absolute mastery of every chakra nature transformation, a vast repertoire of jutsu, knowledge of seals and decades of battle experience.-


    To name a few of the old mans feats that I simply couldn''t even begin to match, at least for the moment. Reaching S rank at my age was considered a sign of extraordinary talent sure but I had to fulfill that talent first. Anyways the the missing nin didn''t cause any trouble at first but when Asuma and Kurenai discovered them and confronted them things went poorly. Itachi used a genjutsu on Kakashi after the silver haired guy mistakenly thought he could handle it with his own sharingan that let him torture him for over seventy two hours which was insane by the way. -


    The reason I say that is that genjutsu doesn''t mess with you temporal senses due to the way they are made. In order to create a genjutsu you have to mentally envision the effect but how do you extend mere seconds into days of time? If you actually experienced that sensation then it would make sense but there was no logical way to do so as far as I knew. That was when I heard that his sharingan was not the regr three tomoe sort but was a pinwheel instead. The moment I learned that fact I was heavily tempted to track the man down just to force him to utilize the mangekyou to create a susanoo.-


    Anyways Kurenai got caught in her own genjutsu because Itachi reversed it on her. Kisame on the otherhand had to deal with Guy who showed up and got his ass kicked by the man. The disturbing part was that these two were apparently after Naruto for some reason and I could only hope Jiraiya could handle them. Sasuke ended up learning that Itachi had shown up in the vige and bullheadedly chased after his brother for vengeance. Needless to say that reunion did not go well at all for him.-


    He even got hit with the same genjutsu Kakashi did which was annoying for me since I was the only one able to treat the brain damage it caused. Yes the genjutsu caused so much suffering mentally that the brain very literally took damage. It was the equivalent of experiencing a massive amount of torture in a mere few seconds and so naturally the brain just short of fries itself when it was experienced. Fixing the physical trauma was VERY tricky but doable for me but the mental trauma was an entirely different matter. I left that to the experts on such matters, the Yamanaka n. -


    As you might expect from a n of mind controllers and readers the Yamanaka n was sort of the viges top experts on the field of therapy and mental recovery. You could probably go so far as to say they were the best in the world in fact. Thanks to this Kakashi and Sasuke were back to functioning normally after a week of therapy. As for Naruto and Jiraiya they were totally fine as Jiraiya was easily able to handle both Itachi and Kisame. -


    During this time period I only ever entered the vige with a mitosis clone which after the first three tries to follow it back to my homes new location failed Danzo stopped sending people to tail. Unlike before where the vige could find me at any time they wanted I specifically left Mizuhe in the vige as my messager but cut off all other forms ofmunication. There was a bit of an argument about how a leaf shinobi should always be avable to be contacted in case of an emergency which was the only reason i had done this.-


    Mizuhe could temporarily bath an area in mist that after it used it''s ability in was impossible to track it back to my location. Not that Danzo didn''t try regardless but simply that he failed. I had to give it to the man he was certainly persistent in his attempts but I made sure all his efforts were little better than smashing his head against a wall over and over again. Karin was exceptionally chipper that I was effectively under house arrest just the same as she was which was confusing to say the least. I wasn''t exactly absent before so nothing really changed beyond I was in the house more often.-


    I wasn''t just sitting on my thumbs this whole time either but grinding my shadow clones to perfect my chakra armor. It was slow progress as even by the time a month had passed I only extended the armor to the center of my torso right below my neck on both my front and back. By my estimation I''d need at least another year if not more to have the armor cover my whole body. Mind you that was with shadow clones and pretty much no other projects to work on.-


    That alone should tell you just how difficult what I was trying to do was given how fast I picked up something asplicated as chakra nature transformation without shadow clones. Despite this challenge I won''t say that it didn''t seem like it was worth it as even just the full sleeve I currently was working with increased my defensive and damaging potential by a gargantuan amount. I hadn''t tested but I was pretty sure I could tank any attack below A rank so long as it hit the chakra armor. The only reason I didn''t say below S rank was that I simply wasn''t familiar enough with that rank of jutsu to say for sure.-


    As far as offense went my chakra armor was able to transform into any shape that didn''t require extra size and that meant des, ws, wings, fins, pincers, stingers and even mouths were possible. Add on my taijutsu and that made any attack of mine regardless of orientation potentially lethal.

 Approaching strife

    Approaching strife


    They can''t really be med for it but the vast majority of shinobi were under the impression that taijutsu was not as powerful or dangerous as ninjutsu. For the most part that is correct as to turn taijutsu into something that can cause widespread destruction you needed either a freakish natural body like myself or an inhuman amount of training. Ninjutsu on the otherhand could cause such destruction in multiple vors at a mere C rank level ofjutsu. The higher the jutsu ranked the more destructive they tended to be and not by small increments either.-


    Taijutsu however had a benefit that ninjutsu could not match that when honed to my sensei''s, Guy''s or my own level made it far more dangerous than ninjutsu. That advantage was chakra consumption. Pure taijutsu didn''t cost any chakra at all to utilize unlike ninjutsu that depleted the stuff quite rapidly when more powerful techniques are used. This meant that while taijutsu didn''t have the pure destructiveness of ninjutsu it could be used pretty much infinitely with the right level. My sensei, Guy and myself all had punches easily as destructive as a B rank jutsu and we could throw them all day if we wanted to.-


    This meant a technique that enhanced my taijutsu increased my danger rating sharply. Only Naruto, Karin and the old man knew about my chakra armor however or I was sure that the rating in the bingo book would have only said S rank. I was admittedly conflicted about the rating to begin with as a perfectionist since I didn''t think of myself as at that level. I had ws, big ones, that I was willing to say at most put me at the Elite jonin or A rank. Don''t get me wrong I get that this wasn''t how that was calcted but that was simply how I saw myself. -


    (3rd person POV)


    While Kenzo was honing his technique and biding his time Danzo was getting angry at how hard to deal with the boy was. The man had assumed that with the third Hokage dead he could easily remove this dangerous thorn but reality had proven him wrong. The boy had acted decisively and hidden away so deeply that none of his best trackers could find a whiff of him. Even worse was that the council was unable to force the boy to expose himself despite Danzo''s best attempts to use that authority to do so.-


    All he had actually aplished was to reveal his own motives to the council which they did not appreciate.


    ''Fools the lot of them! How can they be so blind as to not see the threat the boy poses to Konoha!? During the event during the exams the boy had shown off his power and rather than prune this dangerous and clearly incontroble factor they simply ignore him and even hail him as a new hope for Konoha!'' Danzo thought with cold viciousness.


    If any of the other council members heard these thought they''d call Danzo a madman. While they all agreed that Kenzo had a fiercely independent streak and dislike of being ordered about they also agreed that nearly all powerful shinobi were simr. Those with true power didn''t like being constrained by those weaker then themselves in most cases. It was to be expected and not some disastrous w so they saw nothing wrong with it. Danzo on the otherhand simply wasn''t satisfied if he wasn''t in absolute control at all times so a person like Kenzo was a threat in his mind.-


    In thend of grass meanwhile Naruto and Jiraiya had found Tsunade but were having difficulty convincing her to take up the mantle of Hokage. She was resistant to the idea, highly so. Jiraiya was of the hope to slowly convince her but Naruto was not the patient sort and refused.


    "I''ll master the rasengan in a week and if I do you will return to the vige!" Naruto bet her and the woman agreed thinking that there was no way he''d pull it off.


    It wasn''t so smooth however as Orochimaru sent Kabuto to convince her of the exact opposite and unlike Naruto he was more than willing to y dirty to achieve his goals.


    That ironically ended up being a VERY poor decision as by this point in time she had managed to minimize her fear of blood to almost nonexistent levels. So when Kabuto cut open his wrists in order to try and give himself an advantage it did nothing but piss her off. As anyone familiar with her could tell you that was a bad thing to do as she turned violent when angry. As a result when Kabuto was distracted mocking Naruto and beating him up she punched him through a building.-


    It was only through his highly advanced medical ninjutsu techniques that he survived the punchand he retreated to inform his master of this unexpected development. Her immunity to his shed blood was not part of the n and Orochimaru himself may need to get involved. This was extremely dangerous as he had very limited use of his hands after the third Hokage sealed his souls hands within the reapers belly. This meant that unlike before where the snake sannin would have been confident enough to face Tsunade and Jiraiya and win, now he had a near nonexistent chance of winning.-


    So at the end of the week when the sh of the three Sannin came about and they stood on their respective sagend summons he knew that he had lost. Thanks to Naruto she had finally overcame her fear of blood and now she was after his life alongside Jiraiya for revenge on his murder of their sensei. He put up a great fight before he fled but the fact remained that he had lost to his old teammates. The part that stung the most however was that he lost to his sensei as well and couldn''t even win as the man died with his victory.-


    Sure he had imed the life of the old man but he had not won as his dream of learning all the jutsu in the world was no longer possible. It wasn''t all a loss though as he had learned a fact that awed him even now, Kenzo Mizuyama was a sage. Wasn''t that a massive surprise to discover? He wasn''t sure how often the boy trained his sage mode but that concentration of natural energy around the boy wasn''t something that could be mistaken, the boy was a sage, or at least one in training at the very least.-


    ''It''s no wonder that the boy has managed so much despite his age. He has been practicing sage mode under the whole viges nose this entire time. Kukuku, I wonder what sort of monster he''ll be after I inject those bloodlines into him?'' the snake thought with a gleam in his eyes.

 Exposed shadow and despair

    Exposed shadow and despair


    (Normal pov)


    I sat quietly in the center of the room meditating while my mind wondered as I allowed the natural energy to lead it as it willed. It was humbling and calming to witness the totality of the worlds power for miles in every direction at once. Every insect, snake, bird or other animal and every nt that existed within my range was all seen by me like a massive constantly changing movie. I felt small in a way witnessing it all but yet at the same time I also felt like a god because I knew it would take just a small flex of my will to change the flow of natural energy and spare or kill any of these things.-


    It was a rare asion that I stopped holding back and let my sage senses extend fully. Despite my mind being literally made to handle it this was still such a massive amount of information to process that I could not do anything else while like this. Even though this was the case every now and then I felt the need to just let my troubles slip away as I watched the world.-


    As a bonus there was no hiding from me when I did this and I could see all the shinobi prowling the forest in search of me under Danzo''s orders as well as the secret Root base located below ground here. It was well hidden with many sensory deprivation seals all over it to stop people from doing exactly what I was and discovering and peering into it without permission. The thing was however that there was no stopping natural energy and by extension my senses that were perfectly blended with it. -


    I could see every square inch of the base as though I was standing right there in the flesh. As far as construction was concerned it was little more than a cave with smooth walls, floors and ceilings. Each of which were unnaturally reinforced, with seals no doubt, to stop someone from just putting a bit of pressure on the earth above it to cause the whole thing to copse. Believe me I was VERY tempted to do precisely that with what I saw further in the base. This base had a very well stockedboratory but the problem was what was in theb, Eyes from the Uchiha n.-


    How did I know that they were from the Uchiha n? Because they werebeled extremely thoroughly. Name, age, sharingan developmental stage, it was all there clear as day to see. It wasn''t just the eyes in theb either but refrigeration chambers with biological samples of various people that had also beenbeled. Amongst that number were even my own cells that had been cultivated and were being used in experiments. The Root members in theb were near constantly doing something or other but i could only recognize some of it thanks to my iryonin knowledge.-


    I recognized the cell fusion process, the cell growth process and even the grafting process on human test subjects. In one case I even saw them try and fuse my cells with that of the first Hokages before injecting the result into an unconscious man and watching the result. The fact that my cells failed to fuse with the first Hokages came as no surprise but WHY that was did. They were equal in potency and ended up destroying each other when the process was attempted. Neither side could gain advantage over the other and so they both got destroyed in the resulting struggle.-


    That was apparently the whole purpose of injecting both into a person in fact as theb people said that they hopped this conflict between our cells would allow the host body to absorb them easily. I wasn''t really majored in this field of cellr infusion but even still I knew there was no way in hell that would work without a miracle. If anything the two cell cultures would spread like cancer until they met at which point they would likely drain the host of resources to use as fuel to try and dominate the other side only to most likely fail and achieve nothing but killing the host.-


    These experiments were sickening to watch and I wanted to act against the base but had a very big issue with doing so, Danzo was there. I discovered why he was there too and felt that my dislike of the man was justified. His "crippled" right arm was apparently made of Hashirama cells and had close to a dozen sharingan''s imbedded in it. He was effectively at thisb to get a checkup to make sure the Hashirama cells weren''t killing him while also getting an update on the possibility of fusing my own cells into the mix.-


    I took a small gamble as a result and willed the natural energy to surge into the arm while it was being examined. Why? Because I knew thanks to historical records that the first hokage was a "perfect" sage and it was my hope that his cells remembered that and drew in natural chakra wildly to turn Danzo into a statue. I knew from experience that you needed to bnce natural energy with chakra in order to create sage chakra but through my own tests I also knew that if you failed you''d turn into stone.-


    The reaction to my gamble was immediate but not quite what I had hoped would happen. At first Danzo and theb worker panicked as the activity readings started spiking from the arm but rather than turn to stone the whole arm turned into wood, including the sharingan''s, before it was hastily cut off and turned into a tree in the middle of theb. Not a small tree either but one that grew up and up until it burst through the surface.-


    I was pleased to find however that Danzo had weakened DRASTICALLY after the arm started changing. Clearly the thing had stolen a lot of vitality from his body before it had been cut off as his originally ck hair had turned grey and more wrinkles had appeared on his face. He was still alive unfortunately but at least it looked like he could keel over any moment and the best part? I was totally untraceable to the incident. As far as any readings were concerned the cells simply did like they tended to do and went on a rampage costing their host heavily in the process.-


    There was something deeply satisfying about watching the man despair after a series of tests on his new condition told him he had months at most left to live. The reason for that is that his vitality was now about the same as someone with a sickly constitution at the age of ny. Thanks to this I no longer even NEEDED to personally act as he''d die all on his own if left alone. That said I fully intended to make thest little bit of his life miserable after the new Hokage was appointed by handing over those files the Third left for me.

 Return of the senju

    Return of the senju


    What I hadn''t expected however was that Danzo would triple down on hunting me after he was basically told he was going to die in short order. I''m not talking about for medical treatment in hopes of surviving but because he had apparently decided that if he was going to keel over he should take me with him. It was very annoying to say the least, especially when some of his Root shinobi got pretty close to finding my homes new location. The forest of death was positively swarming with these shinobi over the next two weeks which meant it was getting rather difficult to keep my home hidden.-


    My only saving grace was that I hadn''t put my home at the top of one of the trees likest time but rather UNDER one of them. Directly bellow the trunk of one very wide and tall tree was a hollow area that I expanded before stuffing my home in it and covering the entrance. The massive amount of natural energy my cocooned caterpir drew in made thatst part easy as I just artificially had one of the trees roots grow to cover the opening for the most part.-


    There was still a bit of a gap but not enough to make anyone suspicious that it held a whole house behind it.


    "This Danzo person seems rather obsessed with you." Karin said when Iined about the situation.


    "I could understand it when he had plenty of time left to live but this is absurd! He''s going to die soon enough anyways so the least he can do is leave me be!" I said highly annoyed at the situation.


    "You said your sensei was going to be the next Hokage right? couldn''t she fix this issue with Danzo?" Karin asked and I nodded.


    "That is might hope though what I said is she was most likely going to be the next Hokage, theres no guarantee. Knowing Naruto she''ll probably get the position anyways, that guy is very good at persuading people for some reason." I said honestly with a chuckle at the end.


    "You seem close." shemented.


    "Yeah we grew up together. A bigger pair of oddballs you''ve never seen before I guarantee it. The genius and the fool, opposites in so many ways but perfectly happy with that. He''s a kind and caring person despite how he grew up, hated by most of the vige but he never lost that spark of light." I said with a smile.


    "Sounds too good to be true." she said disbelievingly.


    "Don''t mistake me the guys not perfect, FAR from it. He''s a prankster at heart and kinda an idiot sometimes but if there was anyone I''d want watching my back it''s him. He''s loyal to a fault and will very much die to protect those he cares about if it came to that. Plus I believe that one day he may be able to stand next to me as an equal." I said with a smile.


    At the end of the two weeks a change came over the vige as Jiraiya and Naruto returned with my sensei and Shizune. Everyone was excited to see my sensei as they hoped that with her at the held Konoha might flourish as it did under thest Senju Hokages. She was even the granddaughter of the first so expectations were high. She summoned me to the vige almost immediately after arriving.-


    "What gives brat? I came to the vige expecting my student to give me a warm wee only to learn you''ve been all but absent since the old mans passing?" She questioned sternly.


    "me Danzo, the old bastard has been hunting me this whole time and I had to hole up since retaliating would have ended poorly for me. Matter of fact that''s one of his over there, no doubt to make sure I don''t escape." Iined while casually outing the Root shinobi nearby who quickly fled after I pointed them out.


    "HE DARES!?" she roared angrily.


    "Whoa there! Chill chill, you know me better than that, you know I''m not the sort to take thingsying down. I have evidence that will ruin him and his reputation in the vige but you need to take office first." I said seriously while stopping her from doing something impulsive.


    "How sure are you about that?" she asked with narrowed eyes.


    "Absolutely certain, the Third himself entrusted me with the evidence but told me to only give it to the next Hokage and ONLY them. It was hisst wish and I''ve kept it to myself until now." I said honestly.


    "I heard you were there for his final moments but I never would have thought he''d leave such a burden to you of all people." she said with an apologetic look.


    I shook my head "It''s fine, the situation was about as messed up as possible so the fact he was able to pass this evidence off before he died is a good fortune. You''ll understand further when you read the evidence yourself, it''s so damning in nature that Orochimaru looks clean." I said seriously.


    "That bad!? But if it was so bad why didn''t the old man take care of Danzo himself then?" she asked confused.


    I remained silent at that question as I wasn''t totally sure and didn''t want to bad mouth the dead but I had a VERY good idea why. More likely than not it was because the old man wasplicit in these things whether due to inaction or because he had helped in some way. He literally couldn''t bring Danzo to justice without damning himself in the process. It was mutual destruction and likely the reason Danzo had started pressuring me after the old man died. He held back only long enough to make sure that the old man hadn''t left a trap for him after his death and then stopped holding back.-


    The funny part was that the old man DID leave a trap for the bastard but it had a dy put on it until a new Hokage took office. After all there was no reason to bother about mutual destruction after he died since he was dead. The worst anyone could do was spit on the old mans legacy but why should he care about that when he was unaffected by it? If anything he''d be hailed as an even greater hero as even with his dying breath he thought of the good of the vige.-


    My sensei ended up having me move into the Senjupound temporarily while we awaited her inauguration. She also situated Karin there as well since I obviously wasn''t going to leave the girl in my home by herself for who knows how long. Due to that I hade clean about her to my sensei whoughed a lot and praised me to heaven and back before personally going to retrieve the confused Uzumaki.

 Inauguration

    Inauguration


    My sensei absolutely adored Karin much to the girls difort and my amusement. She showered her with books that belonged to the Uzumaki n, artifacts and even clothes of the same nature. It was only when Karin started hiding from my sensei that I put a stop to it. I get it really I do she was just so excited to see an actual Uzumaki again that she impulsively tried to spoil Karin with gifts. Pretty sure the reason she hadn''t done the same to Naruto was because he took too much after his dad and failed to live up to her mental image of the n.-


    Karin on the otherhand was ironically a stereotypical Uzumaki with the looks, attitude and taste in men, whatever that meant. Still after I moved into the Senjupound I finally had some peace because the seals around thepound left by the first hokages wife Mito Uzumaki made trespassing a death sentence. The woman was a grandmaster sealer and the first jinchuriki of the nine tails which meant that the seals she made were ridiculously powerful andplex. She was very different than Naruto in regards to thatst part as well.-


    If the history books were to be believed she was able to freely tap into the beasts power and even give some of it to others temporarily. Thanks to this the seals around thepound had the "feel" of the nine tails due to the vast amounts of chakra from it she had used when creating them. So much power in fact that my instincts told me to avoid activating them at all cost. Apparently Danzo himself understood how dangerous these seals were as he hadn''t had any of his Root spy on me while I was here.-


    That said there was no less than a dozen of them outside thepound no doubt top make sure I couldn''t vanish again.


    ''It won''t matter in three days when my sensei gets inaugurated.'' I thought with a smirk.


    Normally the inauguration of a new Hokage was supposed to be a grand event with lots of celebration over weeks but the vige was in such dire need of a new Hokage to return us to normalcy that the process had been simplified drastically. About four days long was the entire process as my sensei had to go to the fire capital get the blessing of the Daimyo thene back and carve their name on the monument stone as every Hokage has done since the first.-


    The construction crews were already in the process of carving her face on the Hokage rock overlooking the vige. While I waited for that process to finish I sent out shadow clones to collect some things for me in the vige. To be specific item crafting books and some materials for that. I couldn''t train my chakra armor in thispound but the ce had a fully functional if slightly dated forge and crafting rooms. They were apparently something the second Hokage had installed as he tinkered and toiled over various ideas of his.-


    The forge was even a ce he had created his famed [de of the thunder spirit] in that was to this day considered on par with the seven swords of the mist. The thing had unfortunately been lost to us after his death but records stated that it was just a small metal handle but when fed chakra it created a de of pure lightning that also boosted the power and chakra consumption of that nature of jutsu.-


    It was my hope to pick up crafting so that I might one day create sage tools. Before I could do that though I needed to know how to make items first. What better time to learn than when I have over a week of free time? I came to understand really quickly that a week was NOT enough time. Normal smithing I could roughly pick up in that time due to my ability to retain and utilize vast amounts of information I read as well as my body that easily handled the work and precision.-


    The problem however came in the form of once again experience as well as advanced techniques. The basic stuff like iron and steel forging was easy enough to figure out from the information I read as it was a lot of heat control and understanding of the materials and how they were worked. The issue however was that I hadn''t have the "smiths instinct" that came from years of honing the craft and so everythingmade was practically factory made. It was all the exact same andcked any personality or specialness. The Senju library had some advanced techniques but the problem came up in that none of it was what I needed.-


    As I found out the art of smithing was kept very private and mostly monopolized by thend of iron. This meant nearly all information on using special materials like chakra metal or literally any other type of special material was out of my reach. The second Hokage had apparently been sworn to secrecy in this regard after going to study the art in thend of iron so even the senju library was useless in this regard. I was very unhappy to discover this and had to resort to experimentation to see if I could improve my products better.-


    For example I discovered that I could improve iron or steels chakra conductivity if I flooded it with chakra while it was molten. It was a small increase of maybe five or ten percent but it was still an increase. I also found that wildly infusing natural energy into either iron or steel had extraordinary results. Both metals got a lot more durable with iron having a seemingly two hundred percent increase in durability while steel jumped a whopping four hundred percent, I kept those for myself.-


    I wasn''t really willing to purchase any chakra metal or any other special ore to experiment with so I only managed to get the hang of iron and steel work by the time my sensei was officially instated as the fifth Hokage.


    "Alright brat I have the office so cough up that evidence." she wasted no time demanding.


    I summoned my turtle before retrieving the envelope I hid under it''s shell just behind it''s head.


    "An odd ce to hide something but safe enough given how sturdy that shell is." my senseimented at this sight.


    "I warn you now that what you are about to read WILL make you mad so try to limit the destruction as much as possible." i said seriously as I handed over the envelope.


    She looked slightly hesitant but steeled herself before opening the envelop and pulling out the papers within. I watched as she read further and further with eyes wide before darker and darker an expression crossed her features. I could practically taste her anger it was so intense though she was doing surprisingly well at maintaining herposure.

 Scheming

    Scheming


    When she was done she handed the papers and envelope back to me and proceeded to destroy the surroundings to work out her anger. I didn''t interfere as I knew that she needed to be as calm as possible when we actually move to deal with Danzo. The mans list of crimes was practically a checklist ofws both across thend and of the vige that he broke. If I hadn''t known any better I would have sworn the man was trying to break as manyws and rules as humanly possible.-


    Forbidden research, graverobbing, inciting war, assassination, the Uchiha massacre, the Senju massacre. Oh yes thatst one came as a big surprise but apparently the man had used thest two wars to whittle those with Senju blood down until they were practically extinct. It wasmon knowledge that the Senju n had stopped using the name Senju after intermarrying with the citizens and other ns of the vige. As there were no records of these now differently named peoples rtion to the Senju n many, myself included assumed that they were everywhere in the vige just you know secretly.-


    Unfortunately this was simply not true it turned out as Danzo tracked them down by genealogy and used them as cannon fodder inthe wars to wipe out the n. Unlike the Uchiha n that were admittedly in the process of turning traitor the Senju n was definitely not. With the addition to some of his other "feats" it became clear why he did this. The man wanted the vige to be weak or to be more urate weak enough for him to control. Danzo had a history of killing or being rted to the death of anyone that showed too much talent or potential.-


    The white fang, Shisui, the Senju and Uchiha ns, Dan Kato, and the list goes on and on. Knowing this it came as little surprise why he wanted me dead, I was too talented. Hell the only reason he was having trouble pulling it off was because I was too reclusive and not really ambitious in the standard way. Most shinobi want to be recognized across thend or to be Hokage or some other ambitious goal which means they regrly took mission outside the vige to prove themselves, i didn''t do that.-


    I spentrge amounts of my time holed up training and keeping an ear out for rumors of chakra beasts I can add to my collection. This severely limits the amount of things he can do to try and kill me without directly showing that he was trying to kill me. He couldn''t use rumors because I didn''t give a fuck about my reputation and I verified each rumor of a chakra beast extensively before even considering following up. He also couldn''t use the mandatory missions per month rule either as I filled my quota with medical missions and those NEVER stoppeding.-


    Assassination was also not very feasible since I was damn near impossible to find and way way harder to actually kill. I honestly had to be the most frustrating target he ever had to try and get rid of. Now though he was in for a very bad time as once she calmed down my sensei and I began to n how we were going to catch him.


    "We will need to bring the other ns in on this n." I said calmly.


    "I would prefer not to but you may be right, we will need a lot of support to catch that rat. I doubt someone like that would allow himself to get trapped so easily." she said seriously.


    "I''ll leave the ns to you since as the new Hokage it wouldn''t be strange if you were to call them into your office. Use the pretense of wanting to discuss new implements you want to add to the vige. This way even if Danzo gets word of this he won''t get suspicious. I on the other hand will work to distract him as bait by going on a mission outside the vige, he simply won''t be able to pass up the oppurtunity." I said calmly.


    She looked ufortable at the idea "Are you sure you need to take such a risk?" she asked worried.


    I nodded "He might get slightly careless due to how desperate he is to get rid of me but that man is nothing if not paranoid. If you give me a mission that has the purpose of securing your position as Hokage in peoples minds then he will be more likely to fall for the distraction, especially if the mission has genuine danger involved." I said honestly.


    "I don''t like it but you are rarely wrong about stuff like this. But what kind of mission would be dangerous enough for him to fall for it?" she asked with a serious look.


    "Cleaning house. Or to be more specific you will send me out to actively hunt criminals in thend of fire. Bandits, missing nin, cultists, monsters, everything. First off this would show everyone that you mean business. Second it would be like you showing me off to the world like "Look at how amazing my student is! Now how awesome must i be?". Finally it would also dramatically lessen the amount of danger that merchants and travelers would have on the roads which would greatly improve the economy and show that you have the best interests of thend of fire and Konoha in mind." I said seriously.


    "Sounds like you''d be a better Hokage than me from the looks of it." she said teasingly.


    I shuddered at the thought "Not a chance in hell you''d ever see me holding that office. I''ll take being a hermit thank you very much." I said honestly.


    "I had the same thought once and yet here we are." she pointed out.


    "The difference is that you are willing to ept the office because of the need while I would make myself impossible to find if they tried to stuff me into that chair. Leadings not for me, never needed it , don''t want it." I said honestly.


    "How about a position as a Jonin sensei?" she asked with a mischievous look.-


    "First I''m not even a Jonin and before you say anything I am aware that no one would argue if I got that title but the point still stands. Second I would be the worst sensei ever, you''ve seen my training so you know that I would be absolutely hated by any students you tried to give me. Finally I am sort of in the middle of developing a new technique and don''t have time to spare on kids who don''t know left from right." I said seriously.

 Chase

    Chase


    We waited a few days before starting the n to take Danzo down after that. During that time I stocked up on supplies in a very public manner so that when I actually started my mission it didn''t seem suspicious. If anything Danzo would see me preparing and once my mission was announced think it was only natural that I was told before it was made public so I could prepare. This was not something unusual either as the third Hokage did simr with his own students so my sensei doing the same was in line with what he knew.-


    Hell it was a publicly known fact that Jiraiya was regrly out of the vige gathering intelligence under the third Hokages orders. Once he learnt the details of my mission the old bastard definitely wouldn''t fail to figure out the political benefits it would give my sensei even if I didn''t actually get much done. The trick then became whether he would allow me toplete some of my mission before he made a move against me or if he''d act immediately. I had ns in ce for both oues, especially if he personally made a move rather than sent his minion after me.-


    The third Hokage had made it clear in the list of the mans criminal actions that Danzo possesses at least one of the eyes of Shisui Uchiha whose mangekyou ability was a sort of brainwashing genjutsu called [kotoamatsukami]. I was willing to bet my arm that was the sharingan he had in his right eye socket. This meant that if he personally showed up I needed to keep him from using that eye which was fairly easy to be honest. The moment his chakra moves towards that eye I was going to flicker away immediately.-


    Perhaps before he fell into his current condition he''d be able to withstand chasing me at my full speed but now? His body was likely to copse if he even attempted it and I even had the n to have Akasha with me at all times so that even if he tried using a barrier to keep me in ce she could just teleport me away. My sensei had already made it clear to me that spacetime ninjutsu like that were pretty much impossible to stop without another spacetime ninjutsu of which Danzo had no talent in.-


    To be fair though few people WERE talented in the stuff and even in that rare case even fewer knew about that talent much less made techniques for or against it. Even if he somehow had such a thing it wasn''t something that could be casually deployed but would definitely take serious preparation to set up. This meant unless I foolishly walked into a trap that I would definitely sense it wasn''t going to happen. Still I doubted that Danzo would personally act given his cowardly nature and current health.-


    The man acted tough but he didn''t like to risk himself unless he was confident of victory and against me I can guarantee that confidence didn''t exist, not in his current condition anyways. If anything his current condition meant he was even less likely to personally act as he was likely making preparations for his impending death or more likely than not seeking a way to survive. He wouldn''t find it of course as I had personally confirmed that his body was screwed with no chance of recovery. That did remind me of that weird body swapping technique that Orochimaru apparently used now that would probably save him but at a heavy cost.-


    Stuffing your soul into someone elses body that already had a soul in it was a foul deed and came with far more downsides than upsides. For starters your yin yang ratios would get all sorts of messed up and leave you horribly vulnerable to genjutsu or other yin rted jutsu. Second none of your chakra or muscle memory goes with you because that isn''t your original body. Third was that the body would start to rapidly decay as it fought against your soul meaning you''d need to regrly swap bodies or find one durable enough not to break down.-


    I might be wrong but I simply don''t think the man would be willing to ept these downsides. Anyways once I got my mission alongside a few dozen other shinobi to cleanse thend of fire of all criminal elements we found the game was on. The other shinobi were added by my sensei because she realized that even without the distraction it would prove for Danzo this was a solid political move that would build confidence in her ability as Hokage. Due to this she made it into arge spectacle that I and the other shinobi involved in left the vige at the same time.-


    I wasted no time at all separating from the rest of the shinobi at top speeds to shake off any followers. This whole gambit wouldn''t work if I made it seem like I was allowing people to tail me easily. Besides that I didn''t want any of these other shinobi to get caught in the crossfire because they were trying to be friendly and team up with me. This was a legitimate concern as unlike before when I was just the disciple of the disciple of the third Hokage and only known for my medical prowess. -


    Now I was the disciple of the fifth Hokage, a powerful iryonin, beast master and powerful in my own right as well. Naturally many people would want to cozy up to me since I was now very politically important within the vige. Thankfully no one was going to take it hard if I left them behind as my solitary personality was well known by this point. That said I could sense that some did try to tail me but I was so good at flickering by this point that I easily left after images behind. Normal shinobi even at the Jonin level had no chance of keeping up with me when I went all out like I was now.-


    ''Let the game begin.'' i thought with a smirk as I sensed the tailing shinobi give up trying to match my speed.


    ''Multishadow clone jutsu!'' I thought as dozens of shadow clones poofed into existence.


    They all nodded and took off in different directions which will make tracking me a nightmare. Shadow clones left behind scent, footprints and even chakra signatures identical to the users so this made finding me in short order a VERY difficult process.-


    These shadow clones also had another purpose that was beneficial, bandit extermination. Each of these clones were for better or worse me with a limited chakra and health pool. This meant they had my senses, strength and to a lesser degree durability. In other words just like I could run for days without tiring they could also do that and so this let me cover a much wider area to exterminate bandits in a shorter time frame.

 Chase(2)

    Chase(2)


    I hadn''t made many clones but only the amount that wouldn''t cause me much trouble even if they all got dispelled at the same time. A massive headache was about the length of trouble that scenario would cause me. My ploy worked too as whoever it was that were trying to follow me ended up meeting one of my shadow clones instead. There was a bit of a fight where my clone killed three of the like twenty shinobi that Danzo had clearly sent to reap my life before getting dispelled.-


    I chuckled at the memories as I couldn''t help but imagine the expressions of those Root shinobi now that they knew that not only were they following a clone but that said clone was able to kill three of them even while so massively outnumbered. Still personal amusement aside I was a bit serious when I saw the size of the force that had been sent after me. I had to admit that even I would have serious trouble staying alive against such a force as I was fairly certain they were either all Jonin or special Jonin and this time they WERE trying to kill me.-


    ''Lets thin the herd then.'' I thought with a sharp gleam.


    Focusing my chakra into my hands and feet with added lightning chakra I started rapidly covering the area in chakra mines using my sheep''s ability. I covered a good half mile area in the things which cost me most of my chakra but that was fine as I took off my limiters and threw out a full strength punch which created a massive amount of disturbance. I quickly followed it up by summoning a shadow clone and dispelling it so my other shadow clones knew what was going on.-


    That done I bolted away knowing that the Root shinobi would definitely head this way to check out what happened. About fifteen minutester I heard my presents get set off one after the other making me grin as I sped up blurring across thend faster than the normal eye could follow. It wasn''t quite as fast as when I flickered but was much more sustainable considering I was already low on chakra. I was rapidly fixing that though as I kneaded the two energies thatprised it together as I ran.-


    Despite my trap I doubted I killed more than five of those chasing me and only then because i had made the trap to where it was on if they touched ces they shouldn''t that the trap went off until they hit the center of the trap. A good way to exin it was that I put mines on the sides while leaving the center clear of them until they got far enough into the minefield. At that point they were surrounded by mines and after one went off they all went off. It was a nasty but cheap trick that would only work the first time because of the surprise factor but that was it.-


    I frowned however when I discovered on the second day that Danzo wasn''t the only one hunting me as a squad of poorly disguised Iwagakure shinobi dispelled one of my clones and a pair from the Akatsuki another. I know they were hunting me and that it wasn''t a coincidence because they literally said so before dispelling my clones. The Akatsuki pair were the most troublesome as one of them was apparently immortal as he was totally fine after my clone shoved a chakra flow covered fist through the guys neck and he just ignored it before rapidly recovering.-


    The other was simply an abomination as far as my clones senses were concerned as though he had no less than five different peoples chakras in his body. His eyes were also this weird red color with solid green pupils that bothered me. I decided to hide underground seeing this, literally in this case. I activated my sage chakra enhanced earth release jutsu and immediately sank bellow the ground a good thirty meters but I didn''t stop there but went further and further down until I was nearly a mile bellow the surface.-


    I flexed my chakra and hollowed out a solid chamber before summoning my hawk.


    "Keep the air breathable with your wind release while I meditate." Imanded and therge avian nodded.


    Closing my eyes I let myself be cloaked in Natural energy while I fully extended my senses through the world around me. I took a few moments to adjust to this flow of information before focusing on the people I felt in the forest far above me.


    "Are you sure his tracks lead here Kakuzu?" the immortal with slicked back grey hair asked the abomination impatiently.


    "Yes fool I''m sure, look here this is a trace from an earth release jutsu. A good one too. The brat seems to have been spooked by us killing his clone and fled beneath the ground." Kakuzu spoke with a rough gravely voice.


    "Can you figure out where he went? I can''t wait to offer such a prodigy to my lord Jashin!" the immortal said with a fervent look.


    "Hmmm, give me a moment." Kakuzu said with clear irritation as he weaved some handsigns and ced his palm onto the ground.


    I watched as his weird chakra flowed out into the ground like worms following my rough path down but stopped at a mere sixty meters down.


    "Tch! The brat has gone too deep before leaving the area for me to track, the intel on him never mentioned that he specialized in earth release to be able to move through the earth like this." Kakuzu said irritably.


    "If you can''t track him then what the fuck are we supposed to do now!?" the immortal demanded angry while violently shaking Kakuzu.


    "We move on to a different target then, thend of fire is full of high bounties for us to collect." Kakuzu said shaking the immortals grip casually.


    "Ah man I''m sure lord Jashin would be so pleased if i sacrificed such a prodigy to him!" The immortalined before they left.


    Or to be more specific they acted like they left but quickly returned shortly afterwards thinking that they could trick me into showing up. After that they actually left as I watched them get further and further away until they finally left my range which was very far away from me. To my surprise however something else soon showed up overhead.-


    I say something and not someone because whatever this thing was had the shape of a person but that was pretty much where the simrities ended. It seemed to casually swim through the earth with this weird aloe vera flytrap looking thinging up around it''s head. The most rming thing however was that it seemed to be cloaking itself with natural energy or rather was giving of the presence of a nt.

 Abnormal thing

    Abnormal thing


    If my senses weren''t so connected to literally every inch of the surrounding miles and it hadn''t been moving I honestly wouldn''t have even noticed it. This was enough to raise goosebumps all over my arms because there was no way I couldn''t understand the implication of that. This thing could be sitting no less than a meter away from me when my senses were at their normal level and I''d have no clue at all unless it moved.-


    "Hmm, it seems the boy is more cautious than anticipated. How troublesome. A person of that caliber may prove problematic to the n and we hoped we''d be able to get rid of him early." One voice spoke from the green haired side of the thing.


    To my surprise a totally different voice spoke from the ck side of it. "He will only have a small impact even if he grows to that level but it would have been better if we could have removed this unpredictable factor now before it can grow to it''s full potential. A natural born sage would have a unique impact on what is toe after all." the things heavy gruff voice said and I shuddered.


    ''IT KNOWS!'' I thought in horror and for the briefest instant the overwhelming urge to destroy this thing appeared but I crushed it down as logic told me that was a VERY bad idea.


    This thing was not strong exactly but all my senses told me that killing it fully would require so much force that I would definitely expose my location in the process. That said there was nothing that stopped me from making it''s stealth useless against me. I focused on the thing and gathered up the natural energy in my senses full range before branding the thing with all that energy despite this making it freak out.-


    ''Sage art: Natures Awareness!'' I thought as the brand of natural energy sank into every cell of the thing.


    It tried quite hard to rid itself of the brand as it fled but I sneered at it because this was no simple thing to remove. What this did was permanently alter ones signature as far as natural energy was concerned to the point the one with it shone like a beacon to any sage in the area paying attention. The best part though was that not even by getting rid of every cell in ones body could it be gotten rid of as it applied to ones very soul via their chakra as well.-


    I had gotten the idea from the odd seal that Orochimaru gave Sasuke during the Chunin exams. the seal was oddly enough made mostly of natural energy set in a specific configuration that was rather unrefined and savage really but effectively gave the one with the seal an imperfect form of sage mode by stuffing their bodies with natural energy that is kept from overwhelming their bodies just barely.-


    Creating a brand out of pure natural energy based on this idea was childs y for me as I was willing to bet everything I had that there was not a single living person with as much control over natural energy as me. I didn''t really n to ever use this technique after I figured out how to do it but for this situation it was perfect despite it not having any offensive capabilities. A thing that even I could sense without extraordinary circumstances that also wanted me dead was not something I wanted to exist.-


    Before anyone gets any funny ideas about me being able to use this brand to allow others to be sages I want to rify that it didn''t work like that, or rather COULDN''T work like that. Even the seal Orochimaru put on Sasuke didn''t just grant sage mode but rather forced the users body into a simr state by forcibly shing natural energy and their chakra. Frankly speaking it was way more harmful than helpful as this sh does serious damage to ones body. In fact I reckon that each use took years off the users lifespan but at such a small amount at a time that it was difficult to notice.-


    Sage mode was achieved through a perfect fusion of chakra and natural energy at a specific ratio following the users intent, my body being the exception rather than the rule. In other words it can''t just be "gifted" to someone even by me. The full extent of my ability was to make it easier for someone to feel natural energy and to extract it from them if they lost control of it. I could also force it into someone''s body if I wanted but that was more likely to kill them than anything else.-


    So while I was able to make it easier and safer for someone to achieve sage mode I couldn''t just give it to someone. Not that I would have even if I could as I was more than aware that such power would likely cause irreparable harm to the world. A single sage can do a lot of good if they set their minds to it but they can cause far more harm with the same level of determination. Knowing this I was perfectly fine with leaving sage mode as rare as it is. Clearly the sage beasts of the world were of a simr mindset as they only taught at most a single person at a time sage mode.-


    Anyways with that stealthy thing now rendered impossible to miss for me I turned my attention back to those hunting me. It took awhile but eventually all of these groups eventually tracked me back to the location far above me after finding my shadow clones. Shinobi weren''t stupid normally so once they figured out that I had sent out shadow clones to throw off the trail they began looking far more closely at any "me" they came across. By process of elimination or in luck they all eventually found the location above me.-


    It was sort of amusing to watch them all try the same thing as Kakuzu only to get angry when it became clear that I had made it pretty much impossible to follow me. A few of them chose to chase after Kakuzu and that immortals tracks thinking that they would know about it or if anything were me in disguise. I almost pitied the poor bastards as those two were definitely the sort to kill those who had the audacity to follow their tracks. Then again they were after my life so fuck them.-


    I also got a total head count on the Root shinobi that Danzo sent after me and couldn''t help but raise an eyebrow in surprise. A total of fifty two shinobi all at the special Jonin or Jonin level which if i wasn''t wrong was almost ALL of Danzo''s root members at that level. He used to have a lot more but then the Third Hokage took most of them from the bastard so seeing that he was willing to risk so much to kill me was surprising.

 Abnormal things

    Abnormal things


    <font style="vertical-align: inherit;"><font style="vertical-align: inherit;">If my senses weren''t so connected to literally every inch of the surrounding miles and it hadn''t been moving I honestly wouldn''t have even noticed it. This was enough to raise goosebumps all over my arms because there was no way I couldn''t understand the implication of that. This thing could be sitting no less than a meter away from me when my senses were at their normal level and I''d have no clue at all unless it moved.-</font></font>


    <font style="vertical-align: inherit;"><font style="vertical-align: inherit;">"Hmm, it seems the boy is more cautious than anticipated. How troublesome. A person of that caliber may prove problematic to the n and we hoped we''d be able to get rid of him early." One voice spoke from the green haired side of the thing.</font></font>


    <font style="vertical-align: inherit;"><font style="vertical-align: inherit;">To my surprise apletely different voice speaks from the ck side of it. "He will only have a small impact even if he grows to that level but it would have been better if we could have removed this unpredictable factor now before it can grow to it''s full potential. A natural born sage would have a unique impact on what is toe after all." the things heavy gruff voice said and I shuddered.</font></font>


    <font style="vertical-align: inherit;"><font style="vertical-align: inherit;">''IT KNOWS!'' I thought in horror and for the briefest instant the overwhelming urge to destroy this thing appeared but I crushed it down as logic told me that was a VERY bad idea.</font></font>


    <font style="vertical-align: inherit;"><font style="vertical-align: inherit;">This thing was not strong exactly but all my senses told me that killing it fully would require so much force that I would definitely expose my location in the process. That said there was nothing that stopped me from making it''s stealth useless against me. I focused on the thing and gathered up the natural energy in my senses full range before branding the thing with all that energy despite this making it freak out.-</font></font>


    <font style="vertical-align: inherit;"><font style="vertical-align: inherit;">''Sage art: Natures Awareness!'' I thought as the brand of natural energy sank into every cell of the thing.</font></font>


    It tried quite hard to rid itself of the brand as it fled but I sneered at it because this was no simple thing to remove. What this did was permanently alter ones signature as far as natural energy was concerned to the point the one with it shone like a beacon to any sage in the area paying attention. The best part though was that not even by getting rid of every cell in ones body could it be gotten rid of as it applied to ones very soul via their chakra as well.-


    I had gotten the idea from the odd seal that Orochimaru gave Sasuke during the Chunin exams. the seal was oddly enough made mostly of natural energy set in a specific configuration that was rather unrefined and savage really but effectively gave the one with the seal an imperfect form of sage mode by stuffing their bodies with natural energy that is kept from overwhelming their bodies just barely.-


    Creating a brand out of pure natural energy based on this idea was childs y for me as I was willing to bet everything I had that there was not a single living person with as much control over natural energy as me. I didn''t really n to ever use this technique after I figured out how to do it but for this situation it was perfect despite it not having any offensive capabilities. A thing that even I could sense without extraordinary circumstances that also wanted me dead was not something I wanted to exist.-


    Before anyone gets any funny ideas about me being able to use this brand to allow others to be sages I want to rify that it didn''t work like that, or rather COULDN''T work like that. Even the seal Orochimaru put on Sasuke didn''t just grant sage mode but rather forced the users body into a simr state by forcibly shing natural energy and their chakra. Frankly speaking it was way more harmful than helpful as this sh does serious damage to ones body. In fact I reckon that each use took years off the users lifespan but at such a small amount at a time that it was difficult to notice.-


    Sage mode was achieved through a perfect fusion of chakra and natural energy at a specific ratio following the users intent, my body being the exception rather than the rule. In other words it can''t just be "gifted" to someone even by me. The full extent of my ability was to make it easier for someone to feel natural energy and to extract it from them if they lost control of it. I could also force it into someone''s body if I wanted but that was more likely to kill them than anything else.-


    So while I was able to make it easier and safer for someone to achieve sage mode I couldn''t just give it to someone. Not that I would have even if I could as I was more than aware that such power would likely cause irreparable harm to the world. A single sage can do a lot of good if they set their minds to it but they can cause far more harm with the same level of determination. Knowing this I was perfectly fine with leaving sage mode as rare as it is. Clearly the sage beasts of the world were of a simr mindset as they only taught at most a single person at a time sage mode.-


    Anyways with that stealthy thing now rendered impossible to miss for me I turned my attention back to those hunting me. It took awhile but eventually all of these groups eventually tracked me back to the location far above me after finding my shadow clones. Shinobi weren''t stupid normally so once they figured out that I had sent out shadow clones to throw off the trail they began looking far more closely at any "me" they came across. By process of elimination or in luck they all eventually found the location above me.-


    It was sort of amusing to watch them all try the same thing as Kakuzu only to get angry when it became clear that I had made it pretty much impossible to follow me. A few of them chose to chase after Kakuzu and that immortals tracks thinking that they would know about it or if anything were me in disguise. I almost pitied the poor bastards as those two were definitely the sort to kill those who had the audacity to follow their tracks. Then again they were after my life so fuck them.-


    I also got a total head count on the Root shinobi that Danzo sent after me and couldn''t help but raise an eyebrow in surprise. A total of fifty two shinobi all at the special Jonin or Jonin level which if i wasn''t wrong was almost ALL of Danzo''s root members at that level. He used to have a lot more but then the Third Hokage took most of them from the bastard so seeing that he was willing to risk so much to kill me was surprising.

 Fighting back

    Fighting back


    <font style="vertical-align: inherit;"><font style="vertical-align: inherit;">Seeing so many shinobi hunting me in thend of fire I figured that I may as well use this oppurtunity to get some experience. I drained my senses and immediately began to mold my chakra as my flesh began to bulge and expand into a whole new me, a mitosis clone. I handed over some clothes for my clone before meditating to restore my chakra depletion. While my true form was doing that I controlled my clone to begin traveling away from me before going towards the surface.-</font></font>


    <font style="vertical-align: inherit;"><font style="vertical-align: inherit;">I wasn''t willing to put myself in true danger for some petty experience but that didn''t mean that I still couldn''t get the stuff safely-ish. My mitosis clones caused my mind to be split between my true body and the clone but when my true body was safe and not active I could put my full focus on the clone so while a little different from actually fighting in person the experience was like ny percent simr which was good enough for my purposes. Once my clone reached the surface a good ways away I didn''t bother trying to hide but directly began searching for any bandits I could find.-</font></font>


    <font style="vertical-align: inherit;"><font style="vertical-align: inherit;">Thend of fire was rather infested with the things so it didn''t take me long at all to find a camp of them.</font></font>


    <font style="vertical-align: inherit;"><font style="vertical-align: inherit;">"Shinobi! Scatter!" one of the bandits shouted after seeing my clones headband.</font></font>


    <font style="vertical-align: inherit;"><font style="vertical-align: inherit;">It made no difference however as even when they guy had been scolded I was slicing one of his buddies heads off with chakra flow on my hand. It took me mere moments to behead each and every bandit before they could even try to run after registering the guys yell. I sealed the bodies in a scroll before collecting the ill gotten gains of the bandits and putting the broken minded woman they had tied up nearby out of her misery.-</font></font>


    <font style="vertical-align: inherit;"><font style="vertical-align: inherit;">I knew she was broken because there was no thoughts behind those eyes just an emptiness that I knew was not something you recovered from. Killing her was a mercy and I buried her body deep so nothing dug her up on ident. I left then to go hunt another two bandit groups before one of my pursuers finally caught up with me. A group of five shinobi all men and all with their faces covered in knockoff anbu masks.-</font></font>


    <font style="vertical-align: inherit;"><font style="vertical-align: inherit;">''Sage art: Demonic mist!'' I thought as I began to release ck toxic mist from my pores around me.</font></font>


    <font style="vertical-align: inherit;"><font style="vertical-align: inherit;">"Poison, blow it away!" one of the shinobi called out and another began to weave handsigns that I recognized and flickered away to avoid getting hit by.</font></font>


    <font style="vertical-align: inherit;"><font style="vertical-align: inherit;">Arge st of wind mmed into my previous position easily dispelling the toxic mist I left there and caused serious damage to the area.</font></font>


    <font style="vertical-align: inherit;"><font style="vertical-align: inherit;">''Ren''s poison in mist form is out, lets try water then. Sage art: Needle rain!'' I thought as I supercharged the [thousand needles of death] water release jutsu with a buttload of sage chakra.</font></font>


    In an instant the surrounding hundred yards humidity solidified into drops of water aligned in a massive dome covering the entire area.


    "Shit! Earth dome!" the clear leader of this group yelled as he mmed his palms into the ground creating a dome of rock between them and the water needles that were about to shoot at them.


    ''It won''t be so easy to escape from my technique.'' I thought with a scoff.


    Indeed momentster there was a series of thousands of "pop!" sounds as each needle shot towards the dome at just bellow sonic speeds.


    The dome held fine against the first few hundred but was promptly prated by the millions of needles constantly raining down like a torrential downpour. Screams rang out from the dome as I felt those within it get killed by the overwhelming amount of sharp needles of water that mercilessly stabbed through them by the handful. I jumped however as a pair of hands came up from underneath me to try and take me by surprise. Just because they were surrounded by a rock dome and getting nailed by my technique didn''t mean I wasn''t paying attention to my surroundings.-


    I spun in midair and punched the ground below at full strength. The guys under it got crushed to death in an instant while that spot cratered deeply and the ground and air shook from the force. I quickly double checked that they were all dead before flickering away without removing the water release that was still hammering the spot where the dome once was. It was a good thing I left when I did as another squad of shinobi showed up shortly afterwards.


    "Check the corpses to see if they are ours!" the leadermanded and the rest of the squad split up to investigate.


    A few momentster the squad gather up and looked at a broken but identifiable headband that had been crushed by my punch.


    "Damnit Izo! We were told not to engage the target alone for a reason!" the leader cursed his deadrade.


    I on the otherhand was already ughtering yet another group of bandits but this one had a failed Genin leading them and thus could use chakra to a degree but it was terrible and barely gave memore than a split second of pause. Even that single moment of pause was only so I could mentallypare the leader to anyone from the bingo book.-


    Once I found that he didn''t even have a bounty I promptly separated his head from his shoulders. I didn''t even bother dodging the shuriken''s thrown at me as I sealed his body in my corpse scroll.


    "TINK! TINK! TINK! TINK!" the sound of metal bouncing off metal rang out as the thrown des hit my body and just bounced off harmlessly.


    "Danzo should have already told you lot that wouldn''t work. Did you think he was exaggerating or something?" I asked casually while turning to look at the roughly seventeen masked and featureless shinobi that had just pelted me with shuriken.


    "n alpha!" one of themmanded and the group scattered around me in a certain pattern.


    I simply flickered out of the center before they could finish it and watched as a green barrier sprung up mere momentster.


    ''Sage art: Vulcan shock!'' I thought as I spat out a sage chakra over charged [fireball jutsu].


    The Root shinobi barely had time to turn off the barrier they had summoned before a massive wave of me rolled over them killing a good half before the rest managed to dodge or block it.


    ''Sage art: hurricane palm!'' I thought as I sent a sage chakra overcharged [Tempest palm] right behind my fire release.


    The wind release hit the stalled fire release and thebination caused the mes to explode in power iming all but the luckiest of the shinobis lives while simultaneously leveling a few miles once it was unimpeded.

 First death and outside perspective

    First death and outside perspective


    The survivors fled in multiple directs but it was five different shinobi at the jonin level so I only caught two of them. I wiped out this group of Root shinobi because I caught them off guard with my wide range attacks that Danzo simply couldn''t have warned them about since he didn''t know about it himself. The next group however would not get caught in this sort of attack so easily. I was proven correct too as no more than two hourster the second group of Root showed up but didn''t dare to get anywhere close to me and set up the barrier at a distance trapping me inside before unleashing consecutive B rank jutsu''s of all elements on me, killing my mitosis clone.-


    I had my consciousness snap back to my true body with a jolt.


    ''Such a cheap tactic, how very like Danzo to use such a thing to kill me.'' I thought with a little bit of annoyance because by using the barrier and spamming B rank jutsu so recklessly into it I was effectively drowned in attacks that I couldn''t avoid.


    Still I got some good experience from my clones death and since it was active for so long even restored all of my chakra and thus could make another clone.


    As for the bodies of the bandits I had lost with that clones death? I wasn''t bothered. The mission was to kill any criminals I came across, not bring proof I did so. While the proof would certainly help it wasn''t strictly speaking necessary. In the end this cleanup wouldn''t make much difference in the long run anyways. The bandits from the neighboringnds would see thend of firecking any rival groups and move in to reap the riches from the newly improved economy which in turn will basically reset the board.-


    This mission was not aboutsting change, that''s the Daimyo''s job, no this was about positive publicity for my sensei. It was the sort of move that stabilized her rule in a very short amount of time by giving her overwhelming public support. The cost however is that Konoha will temporarily have much less missions at the D and C ranks due to theck of bandits. In this case however that is actually a benefit rather than a loss since we needed to recover from the third Hokages death and this will give us a little breathing room for that purpose.-


    Once I had internalized my gains from my clone I created a single shadow clone and dispelled it sending my new experience to the few shadow clones that hadn''t been taken out yet. With that done I created another mitosis clone and took full control of it while my true body recovered from the expenditure. Once my clone reached half full on it''s chakra reserves I had it leave much the same way as the previous one. Oh I had no intention of leaving this hole in the ground I was hiding in at all which was sure to keep Danzo''s attention here and not on what my sensei was doing.-


    (Tsunade Senju POV)


    My mind couldn''t help but go over all of the extreme circumstances that I hade to ept recently. My sensei was dead, killed by Orochimaru. Dan, Nawaki, the Uchihas and even the Senju''s were almost all dead because of Danzo and Danzo himself didn''t have long to live because he messed with something he shouldn''t have. I still shudder when I think about all the other crimes that my sensei had record on Danzo''s wrong doings. To top all of this giant messy pile of stressful information off I was the fifth Hokage now.-


    I couldn''t help but notice that my life was going the same as always until I took Kenzo under my wing. From that moment on everything changed as the boy shattered everything I knew and challenged me in ways I hadn''t been since I was young. Kenzo was a monster the likes of which the world hadn''t seen since my grandfather and Madara. In the short span of a year he learnt all that I could teach him in medical jutsu, taijutsu and even managed to still have time to hone other skills in the process.-


    Kenzo''s only real problem was that he underestimated his own power due to his self depreciation on hisck of experience. He was proud and knew that he was stronger than most people but was also frustratingly humble as well. I had no doubt at all that he was an S rank shinobi and not some middling one either but up near Jiraiya and I''s level. The difference is he didn''t reach this point with a mix of power and experience turned to skill but through sheer overwhelming power alone. The frightening part was that as his body matured his power was starting to skyrocket despite his current strength.-


    I almost feel pity for anyone foolish enough to stand in Kenzo''s way after he fully matures. Don''t even get me started on his beasts that were a force to be reckoned with individually but together were the stuff of legends. That crane, Shiro I believe it was named, was the most insane thing I had ever seen with a kekkai tota of all things. And not one with a short range like dust release but rather one that could easily cover a vast area.-


    Kenzo I discovered was also hopelessly dense when it came to matters of romance. Anyone with eyes could see that the Uzumaki girl he had rescued was hopelessly head of heels in love with him. It was something to see where even the slightest mention of him in a positive manner left the girl practically glowing from happiness. Admittedly I couldn''t exactly me the girl either as the story of how they met and how he took care of her afterwards was practically storybook material. He wasn''t the most social of creatures that spoke often but he wasn''t terriblepany either.-


    He could be yful and surprisingly thoughtful at times just as he could also go out of his way to do stuff that was troublesome. This most recent mission for example was a highly troublesome matter to deal with. It was all to distract Danzo while I gathered allies to take him down without giving him a chance to slip through our fingers. It worked too, almost too well in fact as nearly all of the higher strength shinobi of the Root had been deployed by Danzo. The man hadn''t left his base in nearly three days as he waited for news on the mission.-


    Thanks to this he didn''t seem to notice the fact that I was meeting with each of the heads of the ns in Konoha. If he did notice he certainly didn''t act like he cared which was a good thing as it meant we were slowly tightening his noose while he was unaware. The Hyuga, Akimichi, Nara, and Yamanaka ns were all on board the moment I revealed some of his crimes against ns and all wanted to tear him apart but understood that this took preparation for a slimy bastard like Danzo.

 Saint ascension

    Saint ascension


    [Author here! Just giving you all a heads up that this is not a canon thing from Naruto and that yes I am aware of how OP it is but it has serious downsides I promise.]


    (Normal pov)


    I used my newest clone to head towards thend of water because that was a spot that we had the biggest concentration of missing nin and bandits. I ended up getting attacked a total of three times as I headed that way. The first was by some bounty hunters that thought I was easy prey because of my age. They didn''t even realize they were dead before i was walking away already. It was almostical to watch them turn around quickly only for their heads to slide off from the point I had cleanly cut through in an instant.-


    The second attack was far more interesting as I ran into some of the fleeing shinobi from Kiri that had been part of the Mizukage''s faction that was starting to lose the war badly. These shinobi were like rats abandoning a sinking ship and didn''t want anyone to know about their treachery. Of this group in particr there was one Jonin and three chunin that I assume were taught by the jonin. Unfortunately for all of them they were all water release users which meant that my poison mist technique was not something they could handle.-


    Obviously they didn''t just sit still and let the mist touch them when it was clearly not something good for them. But theirck physical abilities meant that it took me no time at all to breach their formation and touch each of them with a whiff of mist and that was enough. The toxin was insidious and devoured them whole within a minute of exposure despite how they begged for their lives and struggled. I summoned my cat and gave it their gear before de-summoning it which meant that the stuff would be waiting for me back in the vige even if this clone got killed.-


    My whole reason for this was because as traitors these shinobi had stolen scrolls and equipment of great value from their vige before they left. Even if I myself didn''t want any of it the vige would reward me handsomely for turning it over. Once the civil war in the mist vige was over we could even sell back the stuff we had recovered from these traitors to them. The third fight was an actual fight because I ran into that Immortal and the abomination named Kakuzu the next day.-


    "Jashin has smiled upon me and provided a worthy sacrifice!" the immortal said with a mad glee.


    "Nothing personal kid but your bounty will be put to good use." Kakuzu said calmly.


    "Quick question before we start, what''s up with your bodies? He''s immortal as far as I can see and you have five different chakra signatures." I asked curiously.


    "Oh jealous are we? It''s only natural that you a nonbeliever would be envious of the gift Lord Jashin bestowed upon me!" The Immortal said zealously.


    "I don''t need to tell a dead man anything." Kakuzu said with a much more aggressive tone.


    "Seems like you touched a nerve brat, made my partner upset time to die then." The immortal said as he rushed towards me with that triple ded scythe of his in hand.


    ''Sage art: bisection!'' I thought as I casually used my Hawks ability super charged with sage chakra to create a thin de of wind that traveled from my palm at super sonic speeds into and through the immortal splitting him down the middle.


    "RAGHARG BAH RAIT!" the two side looked enraged as they flew past me harmlessly while clearly trying to speak some for of curse but obviously failing since the wind pipe and vocal cords were in half.


    "Hmph! I''ve told that fool over and over again that even if he can''t be killed he should still dodge rather than try and trade blows. Now he''s given me even more work to do." Kakuzu said angrily before his hand extended towards me with ck threads holding the two pieces together.


    ''Fire release: fireball jutsu!'' I thought as I molded my chakra and spat out a huge ball of me in an instant causing Kakuzu frown as he quickly retracted his arm and dodge to the side.


    He quickly shrugged and to my surprise three weird thread creatures emerged from his body with white masks that had the symbols for fire, wind and lightning. My eyes widened as I finally understood why he had so many different chakra signatures. He literally had five different hearts that held a different chakra affinity and signature. It was clearly the result of some sort of forbidden jutsu as it was obvious that those hearts didn''t originally belong to him. He wasn''t even human anymore but a man shaped monster that needed to be put down.-


    I flickered away opening the distance between us and immediately sped my hands together as though I was praying. Instantly the nts near me began to die as I forcefully drained my surroundings of natural energy that I funneled into my body. As the bnce of chakra to natural energy that I was born with started to shift in favor of natural energy ck markings appeared around my eyes like tattoos. My energy became much denser as it ran wild outside my body causing destruction with my mere presence.-


    "<strong><em>Sage transformation: Saint ascension!"</em></strong> I spoke with a heavy voice like that of a mountain rockslide as the transformation ended.


    This transformation was a result of my years of experimentation with natural energy and my own sage mode. I had long since discovered that there was consequences to having an improper bnce of natural energy to chakra but what happened if you created an entirely different bnce than the normal easy one? The answer depended on which way you bnced it. Chakra dominant and natural energy subordinate gave you sage mode but what happened if Natural energy was dominant and chakra was subordinate, I dubbed this state [Saint mode].-


    The naming sense was kinda on the nose as obviously a saint was higher up on thedder than a sage since one was a divine force while the other was just a wise man. I''m not great at naming stuff so I just went with what sounded logical. That said this state was not to be trifled with as in this form all of my physical abilities are multiplied by a factor of fifteen and my jutsu''s be natural disasters, in theory that is as I was never willing to unleash one near the vige.-


    "While bing a sage at you age is impressive you are not the first I have fought and you are no Hashirama!" Kakuzu said aggressively as his heart monster things came at me.


    I didn''t respond but merely raised my right hand with my palm t against the air and<em>pushed.</em> Immediately the air froze and solidified in front of my hand that caught fire from the sheer friction before momentum exploded forward from my palm. Miles of forest and rock parted before my palm leaving a long trench half a mile wide and deep.

 Calamitous backlash

    Cmitous bacsh


    Clearly Kakuzu wasn''t expecting such power as he didn''t dodge fast enough after the attack wasunched. His entire body was scattered upon impact but to my surprise his heart monster things that were out of the way of the attack and thus spared gathered together and reformed into a humanoid shape made out of that strange hair material. I pointed my hand at the form intent on obliterating it but immediately my skin cracked open like ss.-


    "Tch, already? I''ll need to make this fast then." muttered with a frown.


    This mode of mine was powerful but came at an extremelyrge downside, it makes my body copse at an extremely fast rate as it simply can''t handle the strain. If I remain perfectly still and exert no power at all I can only maintain the state for three minutes but if I move at all or exert any strength that time drops drastically the more power I exert. This was why I used such a minimalistic attack just now. Despite that however my arm was now in serious condition and could at most take another attack before falling off.-


    "So that power has a heavy cost, you can''t withstand your own power in it. What a frightening technique." Kakazu''s threads vibrated to project his voice as his scraps of skin and bones were collected and fused into the thread humanoid form.-


    I remained silent and brought my hands together while ignoring the pain.


    ''Saint art: Zeus!'' I thought as an ungodly amount of dark colored lightning gathered between my palms.


    I opened my palms towards Kakuzu and the world vanished as the lightning release erupted like the wrath of a god and simply erased everything in a massive crater miles wide and deep with smooth molten sides in front of me. I immediately coughed up arge amount of blood as both my arms crumbled away like dust and cracks appeared all over my body as my legs gave out beneath me. With a single thought I ended this clone as it was well and truly done for.


    ''Only thirty seconds and two attacks, that state truly isn''t meant to be used carelessly.'' I thought sluggishly as the spiritual bacsh hit me. While I hadn''t used the form with my true body the effect on my mind and spirit that was in control of the clone was not small at all.


    In fact I could be considered in my weakest state possible at this moment as I could barely even think clearly and had soul deep tiredness clouding my senses.


    "I will be resting for a while, keep the air breathable until I awaken." Imanded my hawk thatined a little but didn''t argue.


    I was gone the moment I closed my eyes as slumber took me.


    (3rd person POV)


    As Kenzo slumbered the destruction he caused started to be talked about and reported as urgent news to the entire world. Besides two people other than him however no one knew what the source of this devastation was but it looked as though a tailed beast had went on a rampage yet none of them were seen by those in thend of fire. If he was there Kenzo would be surprised to see that Kakuzu popped up from the ground behind where his clone had been with a scowl.


    "Fucking brat destroyed all but my earth heart and didn''t even leave a body behind! This was aplete waste as we can''t even collect the bounty!" the abomination grumbled angrily.


    "GAR RO HEHER!" the two sides of the immortal wheezed out incoherently from nearby.


    "Ugh, you''re lucky you are useful or I''d just leave you here." Kakuzu said with a snort but moved to rejoin the two pieces back together.


    The immortal quickly recovered once his two parts were joined and angrily cursed Kenzo while stomping on the goo that was all that was left of the clone.


    "If you are quite done we should leave before anyonees sniffing around." Kakuzu said gruffly and the immortal spat on the goo before agreeing and leaving with the abomination.-


    In Konoha no one managed to link the news of that destruction to Kenzo due to his summoning beasts behaving normally which would not be the case if he had been in life threatening danger. Despite that the two parties invested in him were thinking of him when the news came in. Tsunade Senju wished that her student hadn''t been caught up in the fight that created such devastation and Danzo Shimura wished that he had in fact gotten involved and that he was heavily injured and on the run. Between the two of them only Danzo had the most information since his shinobi were the ones actively hunting Kenzo.-


    The dying man was not happy with the results of this operation as Kenzo had pulled out tricks that no one knew about which cost him many shinobi. He didn''t me his operatives so much as cursed Kenzo''s name for hiding so much. Most of the ns created to hunt the boy had been scrapped after the first few failures proved that the hidden tricks up his sleeve made them pointless.-


    ''That cloning technique of his is making this far more difficult than anticipated. In addition the reports say that he has seemingly vanished which means he is likely hiding somewhere and using his clones as a proxy so the source of their locations must be where he is hidden.'' the wheezing old man thought as he rested in a chair with an I.V drip connected to his body.


    Meanwhile in the Hokages office a meeting was secretly taking ce between all of the n heads besides Danzo himself and Tsunade.


    "Have all of the preparations beenpleted on your ends?" the blonde woman in the Hokages chair asked seriously.


    "It was difficult to do without tipping off Danzo but we Hyuga have the genjutsu safety you asked for in case he used that eyes ability on any of us ready." Hiashi Hyuga said seriously.


    "The three of us have set up the seals to prevent escape via reverse summoning as well as a barrier to keep him from running." Shikaku Nara said tiredly when motioning to the Yamanaka head Inoichi and the Akimichi head Choza.


    "The Inuzuka and other ns are also ready to throw our forces at him if ites to that." The n leader of the Inuzuka n said with a firm look.

 Springing the trap

    Springing the trap


    "In that case we will call a meeting to discuss "future ns for the vige" that Danzo will need to be a part of at the end of the week. At that time we will reveal his crimes and try him for them there if he doesn''t put up a fight but be prepared should he choose to try and escape." Tsunade said sternly and everyone here nodded in agreement before leaving.


    ''That ability is such a nightmare to n around. To subvert someone''s mind without them knowing or direct eye contact can simply cause too much devastation.'' the blonde thought seriously.


    [Kotoamatsukami], the mangekyou sharingan ability of the deceased Shisui Uchiha. It allowed the user to subvert the mind of anyone it was used on without eye contact or any signs at all like a extremely well hidden and distanced form of brainwashing. One moment you could wish to kill the user and the next you would consider them your best friend without you ever realizing this change had urred. It was capable of doing extreme good in the right hands as it could point influential people in a way that was for the greater good but in the wrong hands it could prove disastrous.-


    Danzo Shimura was DEFINITELY the wrong hands for the ability to sit in. He was too selfish and greedy to use it properly. A question that could then be asked was if he had used the ability in secret all this time and if not why? He could have easily utilized the ability to take the position of Hokage or even take control of the geniuses that show up in the vige like Kenzo and yet there was no signs he had done so.-


    ''I''ll need to search my granduncles notes on the mangekyou as well as any information I can find on the regr sharingan.'' Tsunade thought as she realized the strangeness of the situation.


    Over the next three days a silent tension built up as the ns prepared to spring the trap on Danzo. Meanwhile Tsunade Senju had trespassed the study of Tobirama Senju to look over his knowledge of the sharingan and was astounded by what she found. The use of a mangekyou sharingan came with some heavy downsides such as blindness over time, heavy chakra drain and massively increased costs to the sharingan if the user wasn''t an Uchiha.-


    It turns out that this was the reason no one tried to steal the eyes of the n most of the time other than the retaliation they would receive. The cost to use them rendered them more of a burden than a help and all but crippled the users future growth.


    ''I knew Kakashi was having some extra strain on his chakra because of that eye but I had no idea it was this bad and he has still reached the edge of S rank? Truly a genius and worthy of being that mans son. At least now I know why Danzo hasn''t used that eye this entire time, the cost is too high.'' Tsunade thought as she closed the scroll.


    ______________________________________


    (Last day of the week, Council chamber.)


    "What is the meaning of this!?" Danzo roared angrily as he was surrounded by armed shinobi all poised to take his life in an instant.


    "Yes we would also like to know what is going on?" Homura said with the other elder who had been left out of the loop agreeing.


    "I have a listpiled by the third Hokage with evidence of Danzo''s many transgressions and crimes. Feel free to look for yourself." Tsunade tossed out a copy of the evidence with a serious look.


    The two elders that were old friends of Danzo''s read through the evidence in horror before looking at Danzo and shaking their heads sadly. "The evidence is overwhelming, we can not stand up for you this time." Homura said tiredly while throwing the evidence at Danzo''s feet where he could read it.


    The look on his face grew darker and darker as he read but he didn''t apologize or even speak.


    "Have you nothing to say in your defense?" Tsunade asked with a cold expression.


    "This farce ends here!" he roared as vacuum jutsu tore apart the shinobi near him and sted open the nearby wall where he tried to flee out of.


    "Kill him, he cannot be allowed to escape!" Tsunade ordered while chasing the man and the other n leaders moved into action as well.


    A barrier was formed immediately sealing Danzo inside and he growled in fury before turning to those that wereing after him.


    "You forced me to do this!" he roared as he unwrapped his head to reveal the sharingan in his right eye socket "Kotoamatsukami!" he roared and the eye bled as the pupil rotated and transformed into a pinwheel shape staring right at his pursuers.


    The council members froze with zed looks for a moment which made Danzo sigh in relief until the sound of ss shattering rang out and he suddenly realized that the genjutsu had been forcefully interrupted cutting his eyes ability off even as the vision in it dimmed to blindness. The council members all shook as they snapped out of it and red at the old man who was now drained and down his trump card.-


    The following fight was too one sides to even be considered as such as thebined prowess of Tsunade and the n leaders immediately overwhelmed him and he drowned in a barrage of high rank jutsu that he was unable to dodge. Like this his soul was sent howling at the unfairness of the world into the void.


    "We all need to be checked for any lingering remnants of that genjutsu but this matter ends here." Tsunade said with a relieved expression.


    ''Nawaki, Dan, everyone justice has been served for you.'' she thought as her mind seemed lighter now that she had gotten closure for all of those wronged by Danzo.


    Over the next few days the Root was taken apart and all the foul experiments that the third Hokage didn''t know about or mentioned came to light and were destroyed without hesitation or integrated into advancing the vige properly. While much of the research was forbidden and useless to others not on those paths a good deal of the data was able to push medical knowledge and cellr development forward by leaps. The word had been sent through the root''s channels to those hunting Kenzo to cease and return to the vige immediately.-


    Kenzo was of course not aware of this as Tsunade quickly discovered that she couldn''t reach him at all. Whether it be by messager hawk, other shinobi or even his summons that she could find no message could reach him. This caused her quite the amount of distress as for all intents and purposes he had vanished from the face of the world save the three remaining shadow clones that were still hunting bandits. When asked about it the clones had remained tight lipped and refused to say anything even if it meant they risked getting dispelled.

 Recovery

    Recovery


    They of course knew where he was since he had passed the experiences of his first mitosis clone to them but they also knew what he must have done for that amount of destruction to ur. They knew almost all that he did so they were obviously aware of Saint mode as well as the sort of bacsh that came with it. Knowing this they were very aware that the true Kenzo was likely highly vulnerable to attack at the moment should anyone figure out where he was. Thus the clones could only give assurances that everything was alright and that he''d eventually return but refused to give any usable information.-


    For the next two weeks Kenzo was in a self-induceda while his clones timed out and dispelled themselves. His hawk had been eating the stored rations he had in a scroll since it couldn''t go hunt for food as it needed to keep the air in this pocket breathable. Kenzo himself was being sustained by the natural energy that constantly flowed into him but that didn''t mean his body didn''t hunger only that while he was still he didn''t require food or water to survive.-


    (Normal pov)


    The thinyer of dust shifted on my body as I opened my eyes for the first time in who knows how long. My joints popped and cracked in stiffness from sitting so still for so long as I sat up. My stomach also roared in hunger letting me know I was not out for a small amount of time. My head was also positively throbbing as I was still suffering from some of the bacsh and my clones having been dispelled didn''t help at all though it did let me know that I really should let my sensei know that I was alright.-


    ''First I need to fuel up as this gnawing hunger is rather distracting.'' I thought as I retrieved a lot of rations that I began to devour ravenously.


    Once my supply was effectively gone i was still craving more food but wasn''t feeling starved at least which was good enough.


    "I''m sorry that you had to put up with this for so long, I''ll desummon you now." I said apologetically to my hawk who just screeched about repayment before vanishing in a puff of smoke as I sent them back.


    Contrary to what most believe a summoned creature didn''t automatically have to be sent back after the summoner lost consciousness. They were most of the time because it took a not inconsiderably amount of chakra to maintain the summon and so the summon themselves cancel the summon after the contractor passes out to preserve the persons life since they could easily run out of chakra while out otherwise. In this case my hawk knew that I was able to withstand the cost of the summon nigh indefinitely so remained to keep the air breathable. That said being stuck underground in a small cave was not exactly fun for an airborne predator and so it wanted repayment for the hassle.-


    I could ept that demand easily enough since my hawk had done me good service this entire time so a hefty reward was well earned. Standing up I yawned as my body creaked, popped and crackled as I stretched to get rid of the numbness in it. I flexed my chakra and sank into the hard stone under me before moving up and up until the surface of the ground rippled and I emerged smoothly. I took a breath breath through my nose and sighed in pleasure.-


    There was nothing wrong per se with the chakra circted and enriched air that my hawk made but it was "stale", it held no scents besides our own and that of stone. Let me tell you that is some VERY disorienting stuff for someone with a sharp sense of smell like me. Byparison the forest at the surface was chock full of smells of all sort that gave the air a sort of freshness that I instinctively craved after so long with out it. Naturally that meant I got a rush of dopamine from inhaling this fresh air though the "high" died fairly fast.-


    My bodies rather particr about bnce like that so I was never too filled orcking in a particr chemical including dopamine.


    ''Now then I should send a message ahead that I''m returning to the vige.'' I thought before weaving the signs for summoning jutsu and cutting my thumb before mming my hand onto the ground. A puff of smoke appeared and as it cleared the confused form of my cat appeared while holding a sandwich in it''s mouth. I raised an eyebrow at the guilty feline but in a standard unrepentant cat fashion it just dropped the sandwich and started eating it.


    "Take this scroll to my sensei when you get back." I said while handing over my message after it was done eating.


    My cat grabbed the scroll and I sent the mischievous feline back back to Konoha before flickering away myself to return to the vige. Without having to worry about being hunted since anyone who was had long since left after so much time without a lead on where to find me I made great time back to the vige. It came as little surprise to see that Shizune and my sensei were waiting at the vige gate for me. -


    I held up a hand to stop her fist as my sensei immediately threw a punch at me angrily.


    "BOOM!" The air rang out with the sound of the impact but I didn''t move a single step back.


    "How dare you make me worry so much!" she roared angrily and went to throw another punch but I just stepped into it with a smile and hugged her.


    "I''m back, it''s okay." I said softly and she just sort of deted.


    "I thought the worst after I failed to reach you, there were no sightings and even your shadow clones refused to say where you had gone, why?" She asked clearly having been repressing her concern.


    "I was suffering some bacsh after using a technique and needed until earlier today to recover. I can''t share any details here though, too many loose lips and hungry ears." I said honestly as I let her out of my embrace.


    "I understand, we''ll speak more in my office. I normally wouldn''t push but a lot has happened while you were gone that we need to get you caught up on. And before I forget, wee home." she with a smile.

 Reveal

    Reveal


    "Good to be back though I can''t imagine what all besides Danzo getting his just deserts would concern me personally." I said honestly.


    "Most of it has little rtion to you but is still at least tangentially something you should be informed of." she said with a nod as we traveled through the vige.


    It was odd but I could almost feel the change in Konoha now that Danzo was gone. It was like a hidden weight had been lifted from the ce. It was nice to see if I am being honest and put me in a good mood. It didn''t take us long to reach the Hokages office and I nodded to each of the shadows of the room that had an elite anbu shinobi waiting to protect my sensei. These shinobi had failed to protect the third Hokage and had decided that that would never happen again.-


    "Can they be trusted to keep what they learn to themselves?" I asked since I had a very important confession to make.


    My sensei was taken back by the question but looked at the guards in the shadows seriously before nodding to say that they can be trusted. I sighed but started drawing in natural energy in such an amount that even those not attuned to it could sense it. Immediately dark lines appeared around my eyes as I entered saint mode. Just as fast as I entered it however I dropped it before it could start putting any real pressure on me.-


    "You''re a sage!?" my sensei eximed in shock.


    I nodded "Been a sage for as long as I can remember, that is my secret. The reason I avoided Katsuyu and the source of the recent destruction in the forest was rted to this." I said honestly.


    "That ... exins a lot actually. Why hide it though, I know that if he knew the old man would have treated you like a precious treasure?" she asked genuinely confused.


    "You misunderstand, I don''t mean that I have been able to enter sage mode for as long as I can remember, I''m ALWAYS in sage mode. What you just saw was a form that went even further down that path." I said honestly.


    "What!? How!?" she eximed with wide eyes once she fullyprehended what I said.


    I shrugged "I can''t say honestly as I was born this way, it''s why my body is the way it is and why I canmand beasts as I do. If I''m beingpletely honest I probably wouldn''t have even shared this information had I not met an enemy that knew I was a sage despite not having any marks. I''d rather get it out before you learned in a bad situation." I said seriously.


    "I need to summon Katsuyu for this, maybe she will know." she said seriously and I nodded and let her.


    She wove the hand signs bit her thumb and palmed the table causing a small puff of smoke to appear. As it cleared a slug about a foot long that was white with a blue stripe down it''s back appeared.


    "Is there .... oh my!" The slug spoke gently before eximing in shock as one of it''s eye stalks focused on me.


    "So you can tell then?" my sensei asked and the slug focused on her.


    "That he is a natural sage? Oh yes any sage beast could if they met him it would be hard not to, like not realizing the sun existed." the slug said reverently.


    "Is there some sort of significance to him being a natural sage?" my sensei asked and I was also curious since I assumed so but had no confirmation until now.


    "Most certainly! Natural sages are a myth even amongst the three sage regions but their importance is a well know fact, they are the darlings of the world. Practically naturally urring gods when they mature, immortal, all seeing and capable of transforming the world with a wave of their hands. At least that is what the oldest of tales say but if a natural sage had been born in the past it was so long ago that none remember them." The slug spoke passionately.


    "I suppose when I fully mature that description is fairly urate as I still age and my maximum perception range is only slightlyrger than Konoha. As for the transforming the world part I am afraid that power is beyond me even if I go into saint mode." Imented seriously.


    "Saint mode?" the slug asked confused.


    "A form beyond sage mode, ironically I named it saint because I considered it''s power to border the divine, hadn''t realized that name would fit so well." I said honestly.


    "Would you mind showing me this "saint mode" of yours?" the slug asked.


    I saw reason why not and gathered natural energy again and entered saint mode for a brief moment before dropping it.


    "I can''t use it any longer than that or the strain rapidly causes my body to deteriorate. If I truly utilize it I can hold it for thirty seconds and two attacks before losing both my arms and being destined for death, I tested it with a mitosis clone and the spiritual bacsh had me in aa for over two weeks." I said honestly.


    "I believe I know why that is. That form is like what sage mode is for the average shinobi only multiplied by several times. To rtively safely use that power you may need to fully mature and even then it may be a slow limation process much like that of a normal shinobi learning to utilize sage mode. In truth I don''t think even sage beasts of my caliber or even of Gamamaru''s caliber could use that form for more than a single instant without dying outright." the slug said sincerely.


    "Truly!?" my sensei eximed in shock again.


    "Indeed, while we are better at utilizing sage modepared to almost any human by arge degree he exceeds us even now by a massive quantity. Our mastery of natural energy is childs y for a natural sage like him. That was made clear with how easily he gathered such a vast amount of natural energy in mere moments outside a hotspot. Even if my main body was here I''d at most only be able to draw in a fraction of what he did in that amount of time." the slug said seriously.

 Debrief

    Debrief


    "How would hepare to my grandfather in the future if he were able to fully mature?" My sensei asked seriously.


    "I honestly don''t know, there''s too much information about natural sages that has either been destroyed or hidden. What I do know though is that he would at the very least match Hashirama. You yourself have likely realized this already no?" the slug asked and my sensei nodded.


    "All of the viges higher ups are of the same opinion, he''s grown so powerful at such a young age that we had no choice but to acknowledge that he would likely reach my grandfathers level in time." she said honestly.


    "I suppose that was why I have been getting special treatment then?" I asked and she nodded.


    I was of course referring to how I was never ordered about or conscripted into any mission like any normal shinobi could be. While technically doing nothing but medical missions fulfilled ones obligations no normal shinobi would ever get away with actually doing so, the vige wouldn''t allow it. The fact of the matter was that unless you joined the hospital as a full time Iryonin any shinobi that graduated from the academy was ssified as abat unit and treated as such.-


    Refusing to take other types of missions would only result in you getting conscripted into them anyways unless there were circumstances involved that stopped you from being eligible like a lost limb or something like that. The fact that I hadn''t had bugged me for a while now but this certainly exined it. The higher ups of the vige had taken steps to try and keep me happy since no one wanted to see a threat on the first Hokages level spiteful with the vige even if that oue was unlikely.


    I was a shinobi so naturally i was aware that I could be conscripted for missions at any time, it was part of the job. While anyone else might get angry or upset if it happened after they thought to cheat the system cleverly it was something I expected to happen and thus wouldn''t care all that much. I like to think I was a reasonable person and not quick to anger but I suppose I did hold grudges for stuff.


    "As nice as it is to have gotten my sageness off my chest and out in the open it doesn''t actually change anything. I always was a sage, the only difference now is that you know about it." I said tired of talking about the matter.


    "I suppose that is true but you said you wouldn''t have told me if it wasn''t for an enemy discovering it, they must have been able to escape if you are so worried about the news getting out." my sensei said and I nodded.


    I then went on to describe the thing I had branded while I was hiding and the extremely powerful stealth ability it had. I also spoke about Kakuzu and the immortal I fought and my suspicions that at least the immortal was still alive somewhere if not both of them.-


    "That is a concerning discovery as if the thing is as hard to detect as you say then we are looking at the possibility of a major security breach in the vige." My sensei said seriously.


    "I will need to ask the other sage beasts but I also don''t recognize anything that uses natural energy like that, yet clearly it must be quite old to know what a natural sage is." the slug said sounding concerned.


    After that it was finally time to get me filled in on all the stuff i missed and oh was there a big one in that debrief, Sasuke had gone rogue. He''d apparently left to seek more power from Orochimaru which was just as stupid an idea as it sounded. Unfortunately all the higher ranked shinobi were out on mission at the time so a group of my ssmates were sent to retrieve him, it didn''t go well. The four shinobi who took Sasuke got taken down but the cost was that three of the four who fought them were on the brink of death afterwards.-


    Lee had in the end gone through the operation in the meanwhile and made a full recovery before rushing to help. If it wasn''t for Suna helping out he and Shikamaru might have died as their opponents were poor matchups for them. Shikamaru fought with a sound based genjutsu user and Lee fought with a survivor of the Kaguya n that had the Shikotsumyaku which was an unusual kekkai genkai that allowed the user to use their bones as weapons and was widely considered the ultimate ability for taijutsu.-


    It was an ability that hard countered Lee''s fighting style since none of his attacks caused anysting damage as the user of the ability simply created an armor of super hard bone under their skin that stopped any internal damage. Ironically it was Gaara who had saved Lee and defeated his opponent. The jinchuriki had apparently turned over a new leaf after getting a firm talking to by Naruto previously. Personally I was more interested in what the tailed beast thoughtpared to the red haired sand user but that was not something I could learn without seeking the guy out myself.-


    Anyways Naruto and Sasuke fought at the valley of the end and Naruto lost which meant Sasuke seeded in leaving though it was VERY close. I wasn''t honestly all that surprised at this turn of events since i had long since seen iting and had even warned Kakashi and the third Hokage to watch out for it but they failed to prevent it at all. There had been a noticeable ramping up in aggression in the Uchiha ever since the tournament that had eventually led to this oue. I didn''t particrly care though as the guy was free to make his own mistakes.-


    Other than that there was nothing new that I didn''t already more or less known about such as Danzo''s death and the root being disbanded and it''s research destroyed or integrated as appropriate. I also admitted that I was responsible for the wretched state Danzo''s body was in and even exined how I did it which my sensei found to be ironic. He had that arm and those eyes in a mad grasp for power but they ended up being the cause for his downfall in the end as he wasn''t able to handle intensebat in that state.

 New digs

    New digs


    He tried to use the mangekyou on those chasing him but clearly hadn''t expected that they had not only known about it but even nned around the idea he''d use it. With his trump card rendered effectively useless and him trapped in a barrier with many powerful enemies while on the verge of death his end was the only oue that could have been expected. I got an odd sort of satisfaction knowing that I yed an instrumental part in his downfall. Of course while most of the important business was done there was onest thing to speak of.


    "I intend to purchase a property that the ns will not be happy with and need your help with it." I said to my sensei and she looked surprised.


    "I thought you had a ce in the forest of death, why the sudden interest in a vige property?" she asked curiously.


    "I have had my eye on that ce for years actually, theres something there drawing in arge amount of natural energy. If I didn''t own thend I''d have to share whatever I found after I dug into that spot but the ns jacked up the price for it so until the tournament Icked the funds to purchase it. Afterwards well... Danzo" I said honestly.


    "Hmmm where''s thend at as I can''t think of anywhere that would really cause the ns too much dissatisfaction, a little irritation perhaps but that should be it. No wait there was one spot... no way!" She said with a dumbfounded look.


    "Yeah that''s the one, right smack dab between three of the ns areas by the mountain. It''s pretty barren which is why I assume they haven''t just bought it themselves." I said with a shrug.


    "Ugh! If you buy thatnd those three ns are definitely going toin to me about it!" she said frustrated.


    "Nothing for it as I have to own the area to have that treasure to myself, Wouldn''t mind selling it to them after I dug it out but I had thought to build a house there for my beasts and I." I said honestly.


    "Really love to cause me headaches don''t you? Fine, go ahead with the purchase. I''ll deal with the ns when they inevitablye bother me over it but I fully expect you to hold an open house party when your house is done." she said firmly and I nodded.


    It wasn''t the most unreasonable demand considering the trouble this was going to give her so I had no problem with it. I got a really funny look from the vige real estate office worker when I walked in and outright purchased that dozen acre plot ofnd. They tried to convince me against it talking about how I would offend those three ns but I did it anyways. Once I had the deed in hand I wasted no time at all going past those three ns properties and to my new one.-


    Members from the ns showed up quickly once they figured out that I wasn''t here to visit someone from one of them but rather because I bought thatnd they had all but forgotten about that bordered the rear sections of their own properties. Legally speaking they couldn''t exactly kick me off my own property but that didn''t stop them from trying and failing horribly. I had already summoned all of my beasts minus my caterpir to this new piece ofnd and they did as any powerful animal would, protected their territory.-


    Admittedly it got a bit out of hand as even Jonin and elite Jonin were sent to "persuade" me to vacate the area. Thing was however they failed to do much persuading when they couldn''t even get past my beasts to so much as speak a word with me personally. No one died but some injuries were unavoidable when they refused to take no for an answer. I meanwhile was digging through the side of the mountain towards whatever was drawing in all this natural energy. As I got closer and closer I became more and more enthusiastic as the natural energy had a sort ofck of will that made me think it might indeed be a sort of metal vein.-


    Soon enough I broke through a wall of stone and found myself in a small crystal covered chamber like the inside of a massive geode. To my surprise however the item wasn''t an unliving object like I thought but a small tree with leaves, bark and the works except entirely made of crystal.


    ''That''s new.'' I thought in surprise when I first saw it.


    Walking around the tree I couldn''t help but marvel at it as despite not having any sunlight or even water it existed perfectly healthy and strong. I also couldn''t miss that it was many times easier to gather natural energy in this chamber near the tree than anywhere else.


    ''This ce will make a good meditation spot after a little renovation.'' I thought with a smile.


    Perhaps it wasn''t a treasure I could take and leave with but it was a treasure of great use none the less. A fitting sort of ce for a sage such as myself to live near and utilize in meditation. Before that though I needed to open up a tunnel to the chamber and tten the ground here since it was covered in sharp crystals at the moment.-


    I wasted no time at all starting either as I stomped on the sharp crystals snapping them and crushing them to sand. Repeating this process all over the chamber I eventually was left with a thickyer of sparkly sand covering the ground. Satisfied I then moved on to opening up the entrance I busted through with earth release chakra and oncerge enough moving forwards slowly widening and strengthening the tunnel as I went.-


    Eventually I came back out into the sunlight with a new tunnel perfectly formed behind me that went straight to the chamber.


    ''Looks like I''m rather popr with the neighbors already.'' I thought amused at the Mexican standoff between my beasts and the nsmen.


    "Awful lot of firepower to just say hi. What is this like three elite Jonin and six normal ones?" I said casually as I walked over to the edge of my property.


    "You! You are trespassing on private property and have caused so much damage but dare to act so casually!?" one of the elite Jonin demanded enraged.

 New digs(2)

    New digs(2)


    "From where I''m standing you lot are the ones trespassing here, I bought thisnd outright in a legal fashion. You can check the vige records if you don''t believe me. Naturally I have the right to be here." I said calmly.


    "Nonsense! Thisnd has belonged to the ns for decades!" Another Jonin yelled angrily.


    "Wrong yet again, thisnd has been up for sale for decades since none of you wanted to antagonize the others by purchasing it. Once again you can check the records for proof, i''ll be here if you decide toe back afterwards." I said before turning to leave.


    "You think you can just walk away!?" the Jonin yelled and flickered at me aggressively.


    I simply predicted where he''d show up and held out my palm. The dude ran straight into it and came to a dead stop all at once cracking a few ribs in the process.


    "Yes as a matter of fact I do, Now get off mynd." I said throwing him back across the property line.


    I molded my chakra and pressed my hands against the ground after that raising an earthen wall along arge portion of the property line. I moved to an empty spot and repeated this until mynd had a ten foot tall stone wall surrounding it. No one crossed that wall after I so easily dealt with a Jonin and went to investigate my ims hoping to prove I was wrong. Sadly as they all discovered I wasn''t and thatnd had indeed been up for sale this whole time at an extreme price and I had in fact bought the rights to it. They went to the elders of the ns about it but the fact of the matter was I was in the right here and not some push over they could just press out of the area.-


    Whether political or personal I had power that made me a difficult target to try and force themselves against over something as petty as merend. Sure theyined to my sensei about it and even offered a lot more for thend than I originally paid but after discovering that chamber with the tree there was no way in hell I was leaving. I couldn''t exactly take the chamber with me after all it was far too engrained in the mountain itself for that.-


    Still they stopped bothering me over it and I got to work terraforming the area to mine and my beasts preferences. Shiro and my turtle got a pond to chill near while the rest were good with some trees, grass and a sand pit in Rens case. I myself even drew in a vast amounts of natural energy that I infused into thend giving it a crazy vitality and sturdiness. At the entrance to the cave leading to the crystal chamber I had clones bring my disassembled house from the forest of death.-


    I rebuilt my house and even upgraded it to be more solid and wider while adding a door to the cave. It wasn''t anything fancy but it was a cozy ce to call my own.


    "Jiraiya''s going to be so jealous. This ce is like a natural meditation chamber and even though I am not a sage I can feel the natural energy in here." My sensei said after I showed her my ce.


    "Honestly I think this is so much better than a bit of ore like I had thought I''d find here. Admittedly it''s also kinda nice having a piece ofnd in the vige too even if my neighbors kinda suck. They didn''t even bring cookies." iined.


    She rolled her eyes "Only you wouldin about the ns who you stepped on the toes of didn''t bring you sweets." she said with a smile.


    "Bah! They had decades to buy thisnd and didn''t so they have no reason toin, besides none of those shinobi got TOO badly hurt so it''s fine." I said dismissively.


    "That reminds me but when are you going to get Karin out of my house?" She changed the subject and i stiffened.


    "What do you mean, she''s perfectly happy therest i checked." I said with sweat forming on my forehead.


    She shook her head and smiled mischievously "Oh I''m afraid that simply isn''t how this works , she''s your responsibility so NATURALLY you have to take care of her housing if you are able to and you have so much space now, i''ll be sure to send her over by the end of the day." she said before walking away cackling like a witch.


    I meanwhile was pale at the thought of Karin living in my house again. "Will the Uzumaki n haunt me forever?" I muttered with a sigh.


    As promised I got a redhead delivery that same day and had to deal with the clingy girl grinning like a loon for the next two weeks. Thankfully my sensei had decided to take the girl under her wing and teach her medical jutsu so she was busy most of the day doing that while I meditated in my new meditation chamberplete with incense and a soft rug to sit on for hours at a time. Most of my meditations were on how to improve my chakra armor since it was taking longer and longer to make any progress.-


    Right now I could cover my whole right arm as well as the top of my chest and my left shoulder but every millimeter after that was taking longer and longer than thest. Clearly i was going about this the wrong way and needed to discover a better way. I had thought maybe it would work if I practice covering my left arm with chakra armor then covering both arms at the same time. In truth all it did was swap the arm covered in the armor leaving the other uncovered.-


    I tried just covering both arms at the same time and I COULD do it but only up to my wrists on both and only then with serious strain. There was something about using the technique on two sides of my body at the same time that was causing me issues and I wanted to figure it out.


    "Still having trouble with that technique huh? Maybe you need a fresh look at it to figure out what''s stopping you?" Karin suggested when she got back home and found me meditating on the subject.


    "A fresh look? fresh.... that''s it!" I eximed getting a sudden burst of enlightenment.


    I hurriedly moved to put the idea into practice and immediately I saw the strain from using the technique on both arms lessen dramatically. I thanked the girl with a wide smile and a happy hug and eagerly went to working on the technique to see how far I could push it with the new method.


    "Ah yeah your wee..." she muttered absentmindedly with a bright red face.

 Progress

    Progress


    The thing that was causing me so much strain was that chakra didn''t like remaining still. See the route I took to make my chakra armor was to create a SOLIDyer of chakra that I only worked to maintain and keep solid. Chakra by it''s nature however was meant to flow, that was why the Gentle fist style of the Hyuga was so deadly, it disrupted this flow. In my case I was keeping the flow going under the solidyer of chakra but not in theyer itself which took much more effort to maintain than if I allowed theyer to flow.-


    In a way it was like trying to prevent fish from rotting by blowing on it with cold fan when putting it on ice worked so much better. Both methods worked but one was considerably more effort to maintain and aplish. By allowing the solidyer of chakra to flow without giving up it''s integrity I eased the strain on myself dramatically and saw an immediate jump in how much of my body I could create it over. One and a half arms was my new coverage and that''s from my fingers of one hand over my shoulder and down the other arm.-


    Even better was that I was making rapid progress extending it further which proved I had broken through that bottleneck and for a little while at least it would be smooth sailing. Beyond myself however there was a few things that I should mention. For starters Naruto had been snatched up by Jiraiya for a three year training period. The rest of my ssmates weren''t exactly trying to rapidly improve but did seek out new opportunities to better themselves.-


    Ino and Sakura both tried to learn from my sensei alongside Karin but only Sakura had the talent to keep up with the training. Ino was good at Yin chakra rted tasks but SUCKED at Yang ones which tracked considering her n. Iryonin jutsu unfortunately however had a heavy emphasis on Yang chakra usage. With my sensei''s job as Hokage taking up most of her time she rarely got more than a few moments to teach in person and had a mitosis clone taking care of that task. I myself also had a mitosis clone active running missions for her to put out any fires that pop up.-


    This made her job much easier as she knew that I could take care of most missions she had needed done in a very specific manner. For example more than a few nobles of thend of fire need to be reminded that even though her past was not exactly glorious she was still Hokage and deserved the respect that came from that title. Quite the number had thought they could pull a fast one and make secret deals with the other great viges and I was sent to remind their next of kin why that was a bad idea.-


    Naturally I left no evidence that directly said it was Konoha that did the deeds but anyone not retarded could figure it out. The nobles quickly started to figure out that this wasn''t a drunk gambler they were dealing with but the Hokage of the hidden leaf and she wasn''t here to y games. Mind you this all took ce within two weeks of me getting my new ce so I was quite busy. -


    "I''m sorry you need to dirty your hands with this stuff, normally it would fall to the Anbu but they have their hands full integrating Danzo''s remaining forces into them." My sensei said after I reported yet anotherplete mission.


    "It''s fine, if nothing else I take it as a way to expand my beast collection and get some experience. I even managed to find a rather fascinating beast thisst mission." i said with a smile.


    "Oh? Anything I may need to worry about like that cat of your that has terrorized even elite Jonin?" she asked with a smile.


    I chuckled "Quite the opposite, she''s quite shy actually. Why don''t you introduce yourself Kiseki?" I said and my cor ruffled slightly as a small white vulpine face popped out.


    "Kyu~" a weak vocalization came from the throat of the little fox before the head quickly ducked back into my shirt.


    "A fox? It must have quite the ability for you to say it was fascinating." My sensei said slightly surprised.


    "Yeah, it''s why I named her Kiseki in fact. She has an ability that lets her directly manipte lifeforce and massively enriches the area she''s living in. It was how I found her since her de was the only ce covered in thick greenery despite being on the side of an otherwise frozen and barren mountain." i said honestly.


    "You mean!?" my sensei asked with a gasp of realization.


    "Yeah, if she is utilized right she can elerate crop growth and harvests considerably. Her ability is also particrly good at healing as well though I haven''t copied the ability yet so I can''t teach it even if it would drastically help improve our Iryonin jutsu. It appears to be a heavily Yang chakra rted ability though so I at least have a ce to start from." I said with a smile.-


    "It seems congrattions are in order then, she seems like a fine addition to your collection." My sensei said with a happy smile.


    I didn''t need to say it but Kiseki''s ability was also applicable inbat and was insidious as well. I hadn''t mentioned it but that patch of green heaven on the side of that mountain was littered with the bones and corpses of animals that had thought to steal it from her. Each and every one looking as if it hade from a creature at the end of it''s lifespan. It was pretty damn easy to understand how that happened after figuring out what the little fox''s ability was.-


    She had forced those creatures to age decades in seconds with her ability after stealing their lifeforce. Despite using such a cruel method of killing the little fox was kinda timid and preferred running and hiding than confronting threats. I should also state that she was clearly a dwarf of her species as she was little bigger than a normal housecat with a fluffy tail longer than her whole body. This was how she fit under my shirt in fact as there was no way in hell a normal sized fox would fit under my shirt.-


    Something I had kinda forgotten to consider before I brought the fox home was how her ability would interact with mynd that was chock full of natural energy and thus vibrant ntlife. The answer it turned out was that literally everything exploded in size with me even having to purposefully dial down the natural energy to stop the trees from copsing from rapid growth. It was rather amusing though how my neighbors tunes changed after they started reaping the benefits from my moving here as their own ces had grown more vibrant and bright.

 New beast and jobs

    New beast and jobs


    Introductions between my other beasts and Kiseki were a little funny as the poor fox was shivering in fear just looking at most of them. The funny part was that theoretically she was WAY more dangerous than most of them with her ability. Still it took a lot of convincing to convince the tiny fox that the massive beasts gathered before her weren''t in fact hostile or going to turn such. Like i get it, they are really scary to look at and really strong too.-


    That said all of my beasts get along just fine most of the time and the few instances they didn''t it was usually because they were teasing each other and not actually anything mean. Karin was absolutely infatuated with Kiseki after finding the little white creature. I assume she just liked the color white considering Akasha and Shiro were both beasts she fawned over. It definitely wasn''t a cuteness thing as both Shiro and Akasha were NOT cute. Shiro was a big damn crane and more majestic than anything and Akasha looked like she skipped working out and just ate the gym with how much muscle she had.-


    Kiseki on the otherhand was definitely adorable though so maybe she was the exception rather than the rule but I somehow doubted it. Still the fox was rather shy even after getting integrated into my collection and sent to the farms everyday to contribute to the vige. That was something I suppose i should talk about that my sensei had implemented that was going extremely well. She had started allowing my beasts to contribute to the vige in their own unique ways. Shiro regrly froze food for storage. My hawk was assigned to hunting any messager birds leaving the vige if it wasn''ting from one of the authorized locations.-


    We had caught a rather considerable amount of spies thanks to this in fact and drastically reduced the intel enemy viges had on us. My snake was in charge of taking care of rats in the vige which it was thrilled with. My cat was ironically enough given the role of training genin fresh out the academy how to avoid capture. Kiba(wolfdog) was put to work generating electricity for the vige and the primitive household appliances that were beginning to pop up. Akasha and Mizuhe were assigned the forests around the vige to patrol and catch any spies they found. -


    Ren worked with the Anbu and T and I departments to create new and more insidious poisons thanks to it''s ability to create poison from it''s chakra. Most of my other beasts were "jobless" but that was more because they were ill suited to helping and more towards destruction or espionage. Kuma for example still mostly lived in the forest of death because he was so damn big that he was a threat to the vige just being there. My sheep could donate wool but it''s ability was basically just pure destruction and not that great at anything else.-


    My lizard was entirely a nobatant that could simply turn invisible and entirely cut off all traces of it''s existence. My turtle was literally just a big turtle that could breath underwater. My caterpir was still in it''s cocoon however and there was no telling when it would emerge or even what abilities it would have when it did. The recognition my beasts got now had done wonders for both the Inuzuka and Aburame ns due to my parents having been... well my parents. It was sort of an indirect prestige boost for the ns that a shinobi like me "came" from them.-


    Obviously everyone knew i was adopted but I had been raised by them and that was all anyone seemed to care about. One day though Karin approached me while I was working on my chakra armor with a nervous expression.


    "Um, Kenzo?" She said softly and hesitantly.


    I retrieved my chakra "Yes, do you need something?" i asked calmly as I turned to look at her.


    "The um leaf festival ising up and I um was wondering if you might go with me?" she asked nervously.


    "Hmmm, I suppose I should take a break to rx every now and then so I don''t mind going with you." i said after a bit of thought.


    "Really!? I mean okay!" the girl beamed with an excited look that confused me but I had long since stopped trying to figure out her weirdness.


    A bit of context here was that the leaf festival was a sort of Land of fire holiday celebrating the day Konoha was founded. Each of thends with their own hidden viges had their own version on the days of those viges being founded as well though Kirigakure hadn''t celebrated it''s founding for a few years what with the civil war and all that.-


    In Konoha we celebrated with good food, fireworks, reenactments of our history and various other forms of entertainment. Personally I had never felt much need to participate in the celebrations and trained or slept through the festival thatsted a whole three days. The reason it was three days was because that was how long negotiationssted before the vige was officially formed even if only in name. I suppose if I am being fair this was also the most strained time of the year for the Uchiha n as they had been reminded of their importance and role in the creation of the vige.-


    They are almost all dead now so that really didn''t matter but it was wrong to celebrate such an event without remembering the n and what they did for the vige before they were killed off. Anyways the festival was split into three parts that were celebrated on each of the three days. The first day was that day of the past and celebrated the lost lives and long ago histories of the vige.-


    On this day ys of the warring ns period and dressing up as ones favorite historical figure weremon practices. Once my sensei learned I was participating in the festival she sort of forced an outfit on me, Tobirama. ording to her she couldn''t imagine anyone else more suited to don the mans visage. She said that I was more friendly than he was and looked different but in nearly all other regards nearly identical. Karin went with the only logical option and dressed up as Uzumaki Mito with her hair styled into two buns.

 Leaf festival

    Leaf festival


    The second day of the festival was to celebrate the present and still living shinobi of renown in the vige. This day had ys of these shinobi''s past exploits and a sort of tradition of giving the shinobi you look up to most a leaf. Secretly among those that got leaves a tally was held and the one with the most leaves got the title of Mr. or miss Leaf for the next year. Every year prior the leaves tended to go to the Third Hokage but now maybe someone else will get the title.-


    Finally we have the third day were we celebrate the future of the vige and make wishes for a positive rest of the year. Early in the morning of the first day of the festival I put on the blue Senju armor with the white furred neck my sensei gave me and used transformation jutsu to turn my appearance into that of the second Hokage. I aplished this thanks to a photo of him that existed as well as the Hokage rock of his face next to his brothers.-


    ''A rather serious looking mug on this guy.'' I thought as I looked at myself in the mirror.


    "Are you ready Kenzo?" Karin asked as she walking in in a kimono with her hair styled up and with some makeup on.


    "Hmm, I guess I am." i said with a deep voice that I thought fit the face since I wasn''t sure how the guy actually sounded.


    "I think you look better than this person, he looks mean." Karinmented honestly.


    "Don''t be rude, he deserves respect for all he did for the vige even if you aren''t wrong." I said and she thought about it for a moment and nodded in agreement.


    The girl walked over to me and looped her arm through my own with a bright red face. "So what now?" she asked nervously.


    "Up to you I suppose, this is my first time actually joining the festivities so I have no clue how this usually goes." I said not really bothered by her clinging onto me.


    It seemed like a perfectly normal thing to do if we were going out to the festival together after all.


    "Breakfast then a show?" she asked looking for approval.


    I nodded "Sure, what are you feeling?" i asked and she thought about it for a minute.


    "Pancakes with strawberries!" she said eagerly.


    We left after that and walked through the vige for a good spot to grab some pancakes with strawberries. As we passed the elderly folk of the vige more than a few warmly greeted us with "Lord Second or Lady Mito." and I nodded back in acknowledgement. We eventually found a small street vendor selling mini pancakes and Karin was fine settling for that since the vendor had strawberries to go with them. I myself had blueberries with my pancakes and enjoyed the simple but delicious meal.-


    "You really went all out huh Kenzo?" I heard a female voice say and saw my sensei walking up with a simr outfit to Karin but she hadn''t changed her hair color to red.


    "Tsunade, you look well." I spoke and watched her stiffen in shock for a moment before shaking her head to snap out of it and get a mad expression.


    "That is a dirty trick Kenzo! How did you even get his voice right anyways?" she demanded.


    "I used to speak with the Third about the Second and along with some other ounts took a guess at how he sounded, looks like I got close enough." I said and she shuddered.


    "Not close, dead on. If I hadn''t seen him buried myself I would have thought you him." she said honestly.


    "d to know I got it right, it feels odd being in transformation like this. I so rarely need to resort to such limited trickery." I said honestly.


    She shuddered again "Thank god that this is only for today. You have no idea how disconcerting this is for me." she said honestly.


    I chuckled "I''m surprised you managed to get out of the office long enough to see this anyways." I teased and she groaned.


    "Ugh, don''t remind me! I can practically FEEL the paperwork umting every second I''m away but this is my first leaf festival in nearly a decade so I wasn''t going to miss this for anything." she said casually.


    We went our separate ways after that as my current transformed shape bothered the hell out of her and she wanted to wander in a different direction than us. We on the otherhand went looking for any ys currently going on and soon found one reenacting the legendary battle of the end where the first Hokage and Madara decided the fate of Konoha.-


    Obviously there was a lot of dramatization involved and props as well but it was a fairly faithful retelling of the story from my own research on the subject. Karin was also enjoying the show greatly.


    "That thousand handed wood thing was so cool!" she said with a excited smile after the y was over about a hourter.


    "I was partial to the Susanoo personally but then again my chakra armor does take inspiration from it so I may be biased." I said with a smirk.


    "Really!? I always thought you had came up with the idea from scratch!" She eximed and Iughed.


    "No no, nothing so prodigious. The idea behind how a susanoo functioned just sounded like a good way for me to truly mimic my beasts is all and the rest as they say is history" I said honestly.


    "I could never do something as hard as create a new jutsu like that." she said self depreciatively.


    "And why not? Creating new jutsu hasn''t always been done by geniuses like me you know. Through hard work and a bit of creativity a good amount of jutsu that we use today were made by people even less talented than you. Make no mistake however, you aren''t talentless, far from it so the only thing stopping you is you." I said seriously.


    "Huh? Your current face and voice make pep talks feel sort of inspiring actually, still prefer the normal you though." she said with a smile.


    <em><strong>___________________________________________</strong></em>


    <em><strong>https://.pa /user?u=81578854#:~:text=pa /pa treon_loskro</strong></em>


    <em>Remove the spaces after the "A"</em>

 Leaf festival(2)

    Leaf festival(2)


    "What a coincidence , I also happen to prefer my normal look as well." I joked and sheughed.


    "Alright mister serious, where to next?" she asked still smiling.


    "Hmm, I suppose we could go see the merchants that are here to peddle their stuff for an obscene mark up. I may even buy something if you ask nicely." I said casually and her eyes lit up.


    When I said the merchants had marked up their stuff obscenely I meant it. The first ce Karin dragged me over to look at was a jewelry merchant selling third rate jewelry such as bumpy pearls on a string or dull colored sapphire earrings with poor workmanship at the price of top grade jewelry!-


    The merchant knew his trade though and was sweet talking Karin by saying how well this or that suited her paleplexion or bright red hair. I yed with the natural energy near the stuff to test it and was surprised that one of the items had an above average affinity with the stuff, not amazing like the crystals in my chamber at home but better than normal.-


    "I''ll take this piece." I said calmly forking over the exact price listed and giving the merchant a look that told him I wasn''t negotiating for higher.


    "O-of course sir!" the man said nervously while taking the money as I swiped the rather ugly emerald ne.


    "Why that thing in particr? It''s hideous." Karin asked bluntly and confused after we left that stall.


    "Oh I know that but this emerald has something special about it that actually makes it worth far more than what I paid. I figure that after removing the stone and getting a proper top grade ne made for it it would be worth more than that whole stall." I said calmly and she looked at the dull dark green stone in shock.


    "I don''t understand what''s so special about it though?" she said still very confused.


    I chuckled "Watch." I said and held it up and began to channel natural energy into the stone.


    Immediately the dark and dull color began to change into a deep and bright green that captivated the attention and had you unconsciously staring at it.


    ''Hmm, this would be a good medium for a genjutsu. I''ll have to work on making one for it but it shouldn''t take more than a few days after I get it refitted.'' I thought after seeing this effect in action.


    It wasn''t surprising at all as many special objects had features like this though admittedly genjutsu rted effects were quite rare in natural stones such as this. The effect of the emerald though wasn''t overly strong so I''d say whatever genjutsu Ie up with for it won''t exceed B rank. Anyways we moved on to other stalls to see what was being sold after that. Karin tended to appreciate more shiny things which was not particrly surprising since most people do.-


    Shiny things just tend to appeal to us instinctively for some reason as humans. It was where gold and silver got their value for originally in fact as we discovered the really pretty rocks and well the rest is history you should know fairly well already. Yeah it wasn''t because we knew what properties the stuff had but literally just because it was pretty and not supermon. Like not rare or anything but most of the time it wasn''t found above ground so it seemed that way to our primitive ancestors.-


    I didn''t find anymore special items during this walk through the merchants but that didn''t mean I didn''t buy anything else. Karin begged me for a few items that I bought for her since it seemed to make her happy. It was merely a make up set from thend of snow, a emerald green bundle of silk from thend of silk and a book she took a fancy to. Honestly I hadn''t a clue what the appeal for these items were but she was smiling happily so I suppose it didn''t matter.


    "Lets go grab some ramen from Teuchi for lunch and then go find a jeweler for this emerald." I suggested when I heard her stomach growl.


    "Okay!" She said cheerfully.


    When we got to the ramen shop it had a few customers and Teuchi was busy in the back making ramen quickly and fluidly. Rushing around the shop with a notepad was his daughter Ayame with her usual tied up brown hair and in clothes.


    "Wee! Take a seat and Ayame will be with you shortly!" the man called when he saw us.


    "Oh Karin you look amazing! Your hair must have taken you forever to get up with how unruly it normally is!" Ayame saidplementing Karin aftering over.


    "You have no idea! I had to spend almost an hour just to get it into these buns and another thirty minutes after that to keep it there!" Karinined and I chuckled.


    The two girls gossiped a bit and Ayame took our orders before rushing off as the shop was too busy for her to stay long to chat. As we waited I casually yed around with weaving a genjutsu with the emerald and eventually came up with one that would prove useful for Karin since she was going to be an iryonin.-


    It was a simple genjutsu that used the emerald to sort of hypnotize whoever it was used on to not feel any pain when they were looking at it. I casually tested the handsigns I knew that would recreate the chakra molding for the jutsu while I waited and once I was satisfied I tested it on a random dude.


    "That''s not a half bad trick there friend, been suffering from that bruise since yesterday so it''s nice to not feel it for once." the guy said with a smile.


    "Why didn''t you get it treated if it''s bothering you so much?" Karin asked confused.


    "Aw it''s not really that bad miss, just a big ol bruise from dropping a box on my foot is all." the man said waving it off.


    I casually reached over to the mans leg and used mystic palm to find the issue and then fix the issue in all of about a second before dropping the genjutsu.


    "Eh? The pains gone!? You must be one of those docs from the hospital then, what luck!" the man eximed in surprise.


    "You had a broken toe by the way, hairline fracture really so your thinking it was just really bruised isn''t surprising." I said calmly.


    <em><strong>___________________________________________</strong></em>


    <em><strong>https://.pa /user?u=81578854#:~:text=pa /pa treon_loskro</strong></em>


    <em>Remove the spaces after the "A".</em>

 Leaf festival(3)

    Leaf festival(3)


    After that our food arrived and we ate quickly before paying and heading out to find a jewel smith to socket this emerald into a proper ne. With most of the vige also celebrating the festival there weren''t many shops of any kind still working that didn''t want to take advantage of the festival to make a profit like Ichiraku. Even with the festival being a great oppurtunity for making money Teuchi still nned to spend thest day enjoying the festival so the ramen shop will be closed then.-


    Either way it took some serious searching for us but we eventually found a jewel smith that was still open for business. It was run by a man who originally hailed from thend of iron so he didn''t celebrate the festival. He also admitted that it didn''t matter if closed or not as he didn''t get much business anyways since he literally made jewelry and that wasn''t in hot demand most of the time. When I showed him the emerald and told him what i wanted him to do with it he grinned excitedly.


    "A fine gem needs a fine setting indeed! You''re in luck too as I happen to have a silver ne that I have been pulling my hair out about finding a stone to set in for but this is perfect." the guy said excitedly and took the emerald to a workbench in the back.


    There were a few light "TINK!" sounds as he worked the stone into the ne in question and soon he returned. He presented the ne and I saw that it was a beautifully woven silver thread with a t coin like attachment with a ripple pattern. In the center of the "coin" was the emerald held in ce to look like the source of the ripples on the ne.-


    I paid the man therge amount of money he wanted before promptly handing the ne to Karin.


    "What?" She just gaped at the gift in confusion.


    "What do you mean "what"? Did you think I was going to wear the thing? It was always going to be yours from the moment i bought it originally." I said honestly.


    "THANKYOUSOMUCH!" she squealed happily as she wrapped me in a tight hug that made me ufortable.


    ''Why is she always getting so worked up about something so little? It''s just a ne.'' i thought aggrieved.


    The day pretty much ended there though as we weren''t really interested in seeing any more ys or anything. We got dinner and rxed back at the house after that both relieved in our own ways to be out of those outfits and appearances. For me being in such a detailed transformation for so long was annoying and for her she had scalp ache from the difort of putting her hair up when she wasn''t used to doing so. The kimono was also not veryfortable for her either since her normal clothes were much more rxed.-


    The next day of the festival any ninja with any renown in the vige was out and about to receive leaves. I had a clone on that job while I casually stealthed to various shows about the current famous shinobi and their exploits. Jiraiya was a popr target for story telling due to being so well known while my sensei also got her fair share of recognition though as a medic there weren''t many tales worth telling of her. I got a casual mention in a few ces but not much else since I was rather new to the scene.-


    Karin wasn''t really all that impressed with the shows this time which was fair sincepared to the warring ns period or Konoha''s founding the modern shinobi didn''t have as many super interesting tales. I ended up only getting three leaves in total which was perfectly fair while Kakashi won the title this year with a total of two thousand five hundred and three leaves. My sensei had apparently thought she would win by andslide since she was Hokage but her vices had sort of killed a good deal of her "look up to" ness. -


    She did take a close second though so that was a bit of a constion if nothing else for her. The third day of the festival I started the day by collecting flowers from my property and going to the Uchiha memorial. It was a simple stone b that had the entire list of names for each and every Uchiha that had died during the massacre. The memorial was dirty and ill kept so I spent some time cleaning it up before I put the flowers in front of it and sping my hands together to offer a prayer. -


    "I hadn''t thought I''d see anyone else here." Kakashi said as he joined me and put down his own flowers.


    "I believe that even if the rest of the vige likes to act as though they were better forgotten that they were loyal to it in their own way and deserve at least this much respect." I said honestly.


    "Loyal in their own way huh? A good way to remember them." he said with a sigh.


    "Now then I believe the memorial you are truly here for is over there, best not to keep them waiting." I said patting him on the shoulder as I left.


    The rest of the day was a bunch of loud games and celebration for the uing year. Karin dragged me into ying a bunch of those games even if they were pretty useless for shinobi like us. I even ended up winning her a giant teddy bear bigger than she was in the rubber shuriken throwing booth. Even though the game was rigged with lopsided rubber shuriken I just adjusted my throwing method topensate and easily aced the whole thing. The final part of the festival however was the fireworks which i had something special nned for.-


    "Are you sure we are supposed to be up here?" Karin asked as we arrived on top of the Hokage mountain.


    "Rx, it''s not illegal to be up here just notmon. Besides this is the best spot for what I need to do." I said calmly.


    "You never did say what that was exactly you know?" she pointed out curiously.


    "And ruin the surprise? I''d never do such a thing." I said with a smirk.


    We waited until the fireworks started and she watched with wide eyes as they exploded above the vige. I meanwhile was molding my chakra nice and slowly for the big finale. The final bright red firework went off about an hourter and I finished thest of the frankly insanelyplex chakra molding and breathed out to the air above the vige. Immediately a massive set of several dragons made of pure fire roared across the sky and high above the vige formed the insignia of the vige out of fire that lingered for a moment before dispersing into thousands of embers that fell gently and harmlessly to each person currently outside to witness the scene.


    <em><strong>___________________________________________</strong></em>


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    <em>Remove the spaces after the "A".</em>

 Status quo

    Status quo


    "Show off." Karin said with a wide smile.


    "Seemed like a good idea so I did it." I said honestly.


    Meanwhile in the vige proper the coordinators of the festival and my sensei were all trying to figure out if this little show of mine was supposed to happen or not. They weren''t concerned about damages ort anything as it was clearly a big shy thing that was harmless but none of them could figure out if it was supposed to happen or not. I thought this was rather hrious when I learned about it the next day since Karin ratted me out to my sensei.-


    My sensei was less amused because of the extra work it gave her since it hadn''t in fact been part of the nned spectacle.


    "You can''t deny that it was a fitting end to the festival though right?" I asked with a grin.


    "That''s not the point Damnit! I had an extra hours worth of paperwork to file after that stunt you pulled that I''ll have to refile now that I know the truth of the matter." Sheined angrily.


    "I have no idea why you don''t just use shadow clones for this stuff, like yeah it''d give you a bit of a headache after you dispel them but the work would be over WAY faster." I pointed out unbothered by her anger.


    "It''s tradition at this point, no previous Hokage used shadow clones like that so it''s expected that I shouldn''t either." she said with a tired sigh.


    "Bah, you already broke tradition by bing hokage in the first ce so going a little further to make your job easier shouldn''t be a big deal." I said with a scoff.


    "I don''t know, the elder council might kick up a fit if I broke even more tradition." she said skeptically.


    "That reminds me but shouldn''t those old folks retire already. Like I''m not saying that they haven''t done a decent job of it or anything since you know the vige IS still here. But maybe they should let some shinobi who are younger take over now." I suggested seriously.


    "It''d never go through, those old farts are practically glued to those seats and won''t give them up without a fight." She said shaking her head.


    "They have children right? Why not have them set up a vote for a sessor like with the positions of Hokage and let those people win the spots? This way they would have no reason to be dissatisfied AND we would get people not so stuck in the past in those seats so we could try to actually change things, modernize if you would?" I offered a solution and she looked thoughtful.


    "That''s not a terrible idea, though I''d need at least a little help from the n leaders for it to go through." she said seriously with her hands steepled together on her desk.


    After that things pretty much went back to normal for me as I modified the genjutsu I came up with for the emerald to work for the ne Karin had and then taught it to her. My sensei was also quite happy with the genjutsu since it was perfect for keeping a patient in pain still as the pain was shrouded by the genjutsu. The genjutsu was also the rare sort that couldn''t be broken out of with physical injury as it piggy backed off the pain signals to begin with which made the genjutsu be unaffected by any other pain signals that appeared.-


    She was quite proud to record this genjutsu as a high C rank technique normally or with the emerald ne a low B rank. For a few weeks the scroll was a highly popr object in the Konoha hospital as the genjutsu was simply perfect for iryonin to use. Karin also strutted around like a peacock for some reason during that time proudly showing off her ne. It was illogical to me but didn''t really effect anything so I let it be while I turned my attention back to perfecting my chakra armor. Admittedly I had sort of isted myself in the process as I missed the changes happening in the vige.-


    There were in fact quite a few changes in the vige that all started after my sensei had gotten my idea about the elders retiring to go through. For starters my sensei had finally gotten her long held wish of mandating a single iryonin trained shinobi per team though this was in it''s initial stages. Naturally training in iryonin jutsu wasn''t a quick or easy thing for most and took at least two years to reach the lowest level in the arts for those with average talent.-


    Still my sensei had managed to have an auxiliary course set up at the academy to train shinobi in only Iryonin jutsu. The course was mostly knowledge cramming and chakra control exercises for the first two years. The third and fourth years were devoted to intense taijutsu training and basic practical applications, healing scrapes and bruises, that sort of thing. The fifth and sixth years were dedicated to the more advanced fields of the arts and allowed for specializations such as poison, illness or chakra diseases. The trick here was that she had to get students themselves to take the path of an iryonin rather than abat shinobi.-


    My sensei kinda went with the blunt method of pointing out the difference in talents right when the academy started for the year. There was a sort of ranking tournament between new students and another two monthster to show the difference that different students had to try and sort of trick these gullible children that may in fact just bete bloomers to take the iryonin course instead of thebat shinobi one. It came as little surprise to me that a great many of those from the Hyuga n that weren''t very talented took that path where they excelled.-


    Another change was that more modern tech was starting to pop up in the shinobi parts of the vige. Things like electrical lighting, mechanical appliances and even refrigeration surprisingly enough. The tech field was also rapidly advancing in a short period of time, so much so that if I had known about it at the time I would have thought there was another other worlder here somewhere. Entertainment was still a big deficiency though as there was no electronical version of games or the like, yet.


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    <em><strong>https://.pa /user?u=81578854#:~:text=pa /pa treon_loskro</strong></em>


    <em>Remove the spaces after the "A".</em>

 HIATUS

    HIATUS


    I know what your thinking but no I''m not dropping this or my other story either. I''m not sure how exactly it happened but you guys are somehow closing the gap between Pa treon and here which is not great news for me. This hiatus is so that I can widen that gap back up to a respectable twenty five or so chapters ahead on my pa treon, so like a couple weeks max. I know some if not most of you don''t want to pay to read the full library of what I have written but for those of you that don''t mind and have joined my pa treon it''s only fair that you get your moneys worth.


    With that in mindes this hiatus from this story and my Danmachi fic. For a bit of good news to damper the bad I will be posting daily two chapters of my pokemon fic since unlike this one that fic is almost sixty chapters ahead on my patreon and can do with a bit of slimming.


    On a rted note I can exin some of the benefits you get from joining my pa treon(though most don''t use them).


    Direct contact: Yes if you send me a message on pa treon I WILL read it and respond as appropriate, spoilers and all.


    Reading ahead: Obviously all my active stories are ahead of what I post here on there.


    Creative addition: You guys get the unique oppurtunity to decide what I write via polls on the pa treon at the end of any particr story. In addition you can make suggestions on my current stories that if they fit can and will be added to them. This can be anything from an item to a whole character, lots of room for imagination.


    All that said heres my link :


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    <em>Remove the spaces after the "A".</em>

 Rasengan experiments and accident

    Rasengan experiments and ident


    Naturally the [rasengan] was an easier technique to learn and use thanks to this difference. Not easy but easier, important distinction there. What I couldn''t understand about the technique however was how seemingly no one had managed to add elemental release to the technique even after nearly a decade and a half. The closest attempt to my knowledge was the [lightning cutter] of Kakashi that he made by trying to add lightning nature to the [rasengan]. Thing was though that the only real issue with the technique elementally was that you couldn''t add a chakra nature to it AFTER it had been formed.-


    If you simply used pure elemental chakra though to form the [rasengan] it worked easily with some proper control over the energy itself. Interestingly though the shape and function of the [rasengan] changed depending on the element used to create it. Wind release created a sort of shuriken shape that rotated around the orb. Lightning release was a little more tricky due to the very nature of that element wanting to be unrestrained. When pulled off however the form the [rasengan] took was a bright blue spear with the orb set right in the center of the handle.-


    The water release form was surprisingly arger orb with the [rasengan] orb in it''s core. At first nce I had just assumed that I had created a bigger [rasengan] as it appeared nearly the same but in truth the fast moving water that rotated rapidly inpression around the orb merely LOOKED like the base technique. The earth release variant was odd as it appeared like a brown cannon ball. Appearance wise that was it, functionally it was anything but so simple. Fire release was much like lightning in that it was a bit tricky to pull off but the form it took was a shield oddly enough.-


    What each of these [rasengan] were capable of however proved that the technique definitely would have hit S rank if someone had created these variant before now. The lightning spear version basically teleported into and through whatever was unlucky enough to get between it and the ground it would eventually sink into and disappear. The way it worked was that the rotational forces that make up a normal [rasengan] were sent into spiral formation like the most dangerous drill to ever exist.-


    This extreme rotational spiral literally disced anything it touched violently to the side as if to spit in the face of aerodynamics. Matter doesn''t want to flow away from it but rather is forcefully made to do so. There was no defending against this thing unless you somehow used an equal and opposite rotational lightning release jutsu. Next up on the list was the wind release version that was just as nasty if not more so. This one despite appearing like a fancy shuriken was the sort of thing even I wanted to detonate far away from me.-


    See what it did was fly at the target much like a normal if abnormally fast moving shuriken. That wasn''t the horrifically dangerous part though, no that was after it hit the target. Upon impact you the caster had one of two options, first you let it hold shape in which case it would cut pretty much anything it hit in half. Second however was that you could detonate the thing which create trillions of microscopic wind des going in every direction for a wide area. This wasn''t a matter of simply killing your target so much as erasing them on a cellr level, nasty business.-


    Water release just sort of exploded into billions of needles moving like bullets in every direction from the epicenter. In simple terms it was perfect for killing groups of enemies, not weak but prettyckluster. The earth release version was terrifying and I directlybeled it a forbidden technique the moment I saw what it did. Upon impact it detonated into a bright dome in which EVERYTHING inside it was immediately fossilized. nts, animals, people it didn''t discriminate and turned everything it touched to stone in that whole area. Destruction I was fine with I could fix destruction but there was no repairing the effects of this technique.-


    Fire release had the most annoying effects if you had to fight someone using it. That shield shape wasn''t for show as if anything struck the face of the thing all that power found an outlet in whatever direction that attack came from. It was a whole damn massive tornado of fire released that I couldn''t see anyone dodging with it''s speed. Unless you were fireproof this technique made melee a VERY bad idea. Thanks to this st of fire the technique also doubled as a fantastic jutsu deflector.-


    I also attempted to make a yin and yang chakra version of the technique but it didn''t actually do anything so I assume that it wasn''t applicable in that case. An interesting thing to mention was that it wasn''t possible to use both my chakra armor and [rasengan] simultaneously. The two techniques violently rejected each other and I almost died when I made the attempt. I''m talking most of my skin and muscle on the right side of my body being stripped off in an instant when the chakra detonated. My organs were heavily damaged and my ribs were cracked in several ces.-


    Honestly if my body wasn''t stupidly resilient I likely would have croaked right there but my vitality and self applied medical techniques just barely let me fix my torso enough before death coulde a knocking. My sensei was less than pleased when she discovered how badly I had fucked myself upwith what was in hindsight not that great an idea to begin with. Recovery was painful and long with even my body needing almost an entire month to right everything wrong with it. I didn''t get away unscathed even after that as my entire right side minus my face was scarred horribly.-


    "Theres nothing that can be done about those scars. Whatever you did warped your skin cells in the effected area so while they seem to function more or less the same as before their appearance is off." my sensei said seriously.


    I nodded "Given how bad the detonation was I''m lucky to get away with merely skin level disfigurement. Honestly I hadn''t expected that the [rasengan] and my chakra armor would have such a poor interaction." I said seriously.


    "From the way you mention it it sounded almost like the the two techniques attempted to meld and it caused theyered chakra to grow unstable and rip apart everything around it which in this case meant you." she said and I had to agree.


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    <em><strong>https://.pa /user?u=81578854#:~:text=pa /pa treon_loskro</strong></em>


    <em>Remove the spaces after the "A".</em>

 Intense training schedule

    Intense training schedule


    Honestly speaking I should have seen that oueing from miles away given how closely rted the two techniques were. Unfortunately I was rather overconfident in my own abilities and paid a hefty price for it as a result. It was bound to happen sooner orter I suppose with how eager and careless I was with messing with new techniques. Still even this incident was valuable for me as it not only warned me of a dangerous possibility but also gave me an idea for a new technique.-


    See that horrible torque that my body had experienced had enough power to not only injure me but even do a serious near fatal amount of damage, so imagine what it would do to normal shinobi? The trick was figuring out how to replicate that same effect safely and preferably far away from me. Obviously I wasn''t going to try and figure it out now after just recovering but it would be a project for the future. I was also entirely done messing with the [rasengan] as I saw no point in continuing to work with it after pleting" it by adding elemental release to it.-


    Sure I could try adding the unusual chakra releases that my beast''s had but why should I when the technique wasn''t my style? It didn''t suit me is all, not that there was anything wrong with it but I just preferred my normal techniques instead. It was probably personal pride if I''m being honest as most of my techniques were made by me or at the very least something I developed based off of imitation. The only thing that didn''t fall in this category was the shadow clone jutsu, iryonin jutsu and the jutsu I copied from the vige library. Even still I rarely used any of these things in battle other than iryonin jutsu.-


    The [rasengan] was a different matter entirely as it was aplete technique technically and I barely had to do anything to get the elemental variants of it. Even then the essence was still basically the same. It wasn''t like the jutsu I learnt and then turned into something new by adapting them to sage chakra. Anyways I took it easy for a while on my training with my chakra armor under penalty of paperwork by my sensei and enforced by Karin who had gotten ufortably clingy after my near death experience.-


    Even my beast had gotten protective after that with one of them constantly nearby like I was just going to suddenly keel over by breathing wrong! Like I get WHY everyone was so freaked out about it since this kinda thing was rather serious but I am a shinobi which was a dangerous profession inherently. Ok so maybe killing yourself on ident wasn''t all thatmon but that was still no reason to act like I was made of ss damnit. Thankfully after a couple weeks everything went mostly back to normal and I could get back to work training hard with my chakra armor.-


    Compared to when I started my chakra armor hade a veryrge way as I had gone from barely being able to cover a finger to covering a whole arm, most of the upper portion of my chest and up to my other arms mid forearm. I was oh so tantalizingly close to being able to cover both of my arms at which point I could start working on extending the armor down my belly and legs. I was saving my head forst as the chakrawork and nervous system there was particrly delicate.-


    I can''t really say much changed over the next year as everyday I woke up, ate breakfast, trained my chakra armor, ate lunch, trained some more and then grabbed dinner with Karin from somewhere. I still had a mitosis clone working in the hospital so I didn''t have any missions to worry about and could focus my attention. The vige itself had some changes though that i can talk about. First and foremost was that the whole ce had electrical wires running through it and had modernized a noticeable amount. -


    My peers had also started to mature as they much like myself were in their mid teens now at fourteen and fifteen years old. It had made a bit of a fuss when it came time for my birthday and I refused to celebrate it but it''s not like I could be forced to do so either so it had to be left alone. I still got some gifts though but nothing really memorable. Naruto also had his birthday shortly after I had mine but since he was out of the vige we had to send the gifts to him through delivery.-


    It wasn''t anything crazy just some money and my notes on the [rasengan] that he had made a big part of his go to arsenal. I certainly couldn''t me him for it as while it took a lot of chakra and control even the base version was a hard hitting technique. I suppose I should mention that there was a little bit of a fuss about me figuring out the elemental variants of the technique after Naruto told Jiraiya who was training him. Honestly I didn''t see a reason for all the dramatics about me not telling anyone about it considering only like seven people in the entire vige could use the thing.-


    It wasn''t really even a go to technique for those people other than Naruto and Jiraiya either as Kakashi literally never used it in battle and the Hokage guard during the Fourths time were pretty much retired and/or never left the vige. Throwing a fit about me not mentioning it after that as a result was stupid in my opinion but it was whatever at this point. My sensei actually had the nerve to ask if I had made improvements to any other legacy jutsu of the vige like I actually had the time to do something like that with my busy schedule.-


    Hell I probably wouldn''t have even learnt and messed with the [rasengan] if it wasn''t for me thinking I''d gain inspiration for my chakra armor in the process. I didn''t by the way,plete waste of time on that front. Another change in the vige was that thanks to Kiseki the harvests of food and herbs had skyrocketed which meant we were gaining much more ie from shipping out the stuff we had excess of, which was a lot.-


    Thinking about it there was in fact one thing that happened involving myself that was unexpected. Mynd had started to show signs of bing a sage region tainted with my unique natural energy signature. As it turned out me residing in a very heavily natural energy rich area for a long period of time had started to cause my own constant intake and expel of natural energy to "taint the surroundings a bit, it really was very minute though unlike the other sage regions.


    <em><strong>___________________________________________</strong></em>


    <em><strong>https://.pa /user?u=81578854#:~:text=pa /pa treon_loskro</strong></em>


    <em>Remove the spaces after the "A".</em>

 Bug hatching

    Bug hatching


    To be fair though those areas also had an entire poption of sage beasts living in it for hundreds if not thousands of years. It was also worth mentioning that the stretch ofnd I was upying was minisculepared to those regions so the speed at which I was "tainting" it was considerably faster. Besides these things though nothing happened during this past year. It was only after this time passed that something finally changed, my caterpir started to break free of it''s cocoon. It had been in the damn thing for nearly two years now so I was almost getting worried.-


    "You said this thing had been wrapped up for how long!?" Karin eximed in shock after I brought her with me to watch the hatching.


    "Yeah it''s an incredibly long time for any butterfly or moth species to be cocooned ording to all the records that we had on that type of insect." I said calmly.


    "What kind of bug even is this then?" she asked curiously.


    I shrugged "we have no idea, none of the records we went over that went as far back as five hundred years ago mentioned anything quite like it. As far as we know it may be unique and the only one of it''s kind." I said honestly.


    "And you just randomly found it in the forest of death one day?" she asked but I shook my head.


    "It found me in truth, I merely chose to add it to my collection of beasts is all." I said honestly.


    The cocoon started to crack at this point so we went silent and watched. At first it was a small crack but as the creature within struggled and pushed it''s way out the crack grewrger andrger to the point we could make out the wet fuzzy body within that was wiggling fiercely. -


    It took about an hour but eventually the thing freed itself and stood on the outside of it''s cocoon withpressed wings that were expanding fully as they dried. It was about four feet long with a wide fuzzy carapaced body possessing six legs and two long antennae on it''spound eyed head. The entire body had this stunning iridescent rainbow colored "fur" on it that pulsed rhythmically like a breeze blowing through a wheat field starting at it''s head.-


    On it''s back were two vibrantly pearlescent wings, white with ck lines running through it in stunning contrast. The wings were also like normal for a moth much bigger than the rest of it''s body extending up and behind it a good twelve or thirteen feet. It was also clear from the body that this was indeed a form of moth but the stunning part for me was the undeniable presence of sage chakra within it. How could I possibly miss it''s presence when it was eerily simr to what constantly flowed within my self. It was so simr in fact that I for a brief moment considered if this was a mitosis clone of mine taking the form of a moth.-


    "It''s beautiful!" Karin said mesmerized by the creature.


    "It is indeed quite the sight to behold. It''s powerful too, a bit below shiro if I''m not mistaken. What a monster." I said grinning widely.


    I honestly couldn''t care less about whatever ability it had with this sheer quantity of chakra, SAGE chakra at that meaning it was easily S rank in power even without one. If it had a powerful ability as well then it may even rece Shiro as my most powerful beast.-


    I didn''t press my newly emerged beast for details as I knew from plenty of studying that it took a period of time for a newly emerged moth or butterfly to adjust to their new state. Adding conversation and detail gathering work to that would merely slow this matter down so I was satisfied waiting for it to initiate the conversation. Well I say conversation but even though my beast had clearly be a sage beast it definitely couldn''t speak yet so it would be more me asking questions and tranting the response via my odd sage powers.-


    Katsuyu was a well of knowledge on the matter of sage beasts which was how I discovered that they were a whole hell of a lot rarer than I had originally thought. See there was two ways that a sage beast came about, the first was that a sage helped a chakra beast to learn how to utilize natural energy. The second method was for a chakra beast to either mutate in such a fashion that they could sense and thus utilize natural energy or if they were born able to sense it due to a mutation before birth rather than after.-


    ording to Katsuyu new sage beasts while possessing the same level of intelligence as a human had to learn how to speak over time through experimentation with each one learning how through a different method based on their biology. Katsuyu for example apparently exhaled air that she vibrated within her body to imitate speech since as a slug she obviously didn''t have vocal cords. The toad sage beasts croaked to speak while the snake sage beasts hissed to do so. Obviously chakra beasts could also learn to speak if they were smart enough as well but it was different in that case as those were the exceptions rather than the rule.-


    ALL sage beasts could learn to speak which was what separated them from most chakra beasts other than the natural energy use of course. Anyways it took my bug nearly three hours to adjust to it''s new state and finally start moving away from it''s cocoon. During that time Karin and I had been talking about what we wanted for the future and her idea was pretty standard to be honest. She wanted to be the best medical ninja in the world like my sensei, get married and have a few kids while living happily ever after.-


    I wished her luck on that while sharing the fact that I didn''t really have any ns for the future, not even basic ones like hers. Sure I was probably going to keep collecting chakra beasts and reaching for my full potential but I didn''t really have an aplishment I wanted to do. I already seeded in having the most impressive collection of chakra beasts in the world so I was pretty much just living day by day doing as I pleased.


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    <em>Remove the spaces after the "A".</em>

 Thoughts

    Thoughts


    That sounds like a sad existence to live but I disagreed. It was quiet and peaceful to not NEED to push yourself or strive for a lofty goal you may never reach. It was rather ironic how very sagely I was acted in regards to the way I lived. I did as I pleased and had no true burdens on my shoulders in truth as who could give them to me? The vige refused to do anything that might annoy me and I didn''t really have any enemies.-


    Sure there were people that would absolutely not hesitate to kill me if given a chance but no one was ACTIVELY trying to murder me anymore after Danzo was dealt with. My beasts were sort of a different story with Kiseki currently being actively targeted by the other viges due to her ability to influence the growth of nts around her. All of the viges save Suna sent regr assassins after her because of the sheer threat to the bnce she posed. More nts in a shorter time meant more money for the vige and more money meant better trained and outfitted shinobi which the other viges did not want to see.-


    While money didn''t exactly make the world of shinobi go around it was without a doubt a serious factor to consider. In the short term the impact Kiseki caused to Konoha''s finances was not a problem but say five or ten years from now of nothing but stupidly fast nt growth and profits and there was now a VERY big problem. The vige was already the wealthiest in the world due to it''s location being hyper rich in resources that we absolutely exploited so if we grew too wealthy we might be able to throw absurd amounts of money at the other viges to suppress them.-


    Most of my other beasts weren''t targets of assassination due to being very powerful on their own or just as reclusive as myself but every now and again some idiot attempts it still. Thetest of these trials was aimed at my cat hriously enough to embarrassing effect for the would be assassin. None of my beasts are stupid per se, not geniuses or anything but certainly not retarded. That said a few, my cat included, had lets say troublesome tendencies.-


    I am of course referring to actions that could be considered ying with their lives such as my cats habit of stealing food from shinobi. Chasing my cat had in fact even been turned into a very popr D rank mission for new Genin squads to be given as it trained their tracking, urban movement and trapping skills. Obviously no one had seeded inpleting the mission but the lessons learned from the attempt was worth it as far as the vige had decided. Obviously this boost ofpetency even small as it was annoyed the other viges who failed to replicate it for obvious reasons.-


    This meant some assassins were sent every now and then to kill the bothersome feline in any way possible. The most recent assassin disguised themselves as a Konoha shinobi and was fake about to eat a very heavily poisoned sandwich to try and get my cat to kill itself. The problem came however when some ACTUAL Konoha shinobi joined the poor bastard to eat their lunches and my cat never showed so the fool had no choice but to eat the poisoned meal. He was obviously captured after the other shinobi saw that he had been poisoned and took him to the hospital only to discover he was a fraud.-


    The kicker? My cat had been watching from the shadows nearby the whole damn time but sniffed him out due to knowing every shinobi in the vige after having stolen from them all before. Yes my cat was that much of a menace to society and I couldn''t be prouder. Anyways Karin, my moth and I left the forest of death after the moth got settled. There was a bit of amotion when we entered the vige what with the tailed beast level chakra that the moth had and all.-


    "Hard to imagine that this is that same fat caterpir from before, it feels like an entirely different thing." my sensei said surprised as she examined my moth.


    "Well it did evolve into a sage beast by devouring my chakra for several years so I don''t think that such a leap in strength is out of the range of understanding." I said calmly.


    "Knowing what i do I can''t really find a reason to disagree, still at the rate you are going you''ll have an army of S ranks to yourself in a decade at most. This moth makes two with Shiro right?" she asked and I nodded.


    "Kuma and Akasha haven''t quite crossed that gap between Elite Jonin and S rank but Akasha is the closest of the two. I''d say if she can push the distance of her innate ability further and increase her chakra pool she''ll make it there. Kuma''s a bit trickier as while he is growing more powerful over time he hasn''t TRIED to improve his strength in an active manner and is frankly ratherzy instead." I said helplessly.


    "I''m not surprised since he''s a bear. He was already a part of an apex predator species even without being a chakra beast but after that he could be considered a monstrous existence now the same as that tiger, Akasha. With no naturalpetition it''s no wonder the slothful aspect of his species is at the forefront." she said with a shrug.


    "I know, still it would do him some good to actually try and improve himself even if only a little. His ability has such room for growth after all." I said with a sigh.


    "The Nara n is of a simr mindset from what Shikaku has told me. they believe Kuma''s ability to absorb sunlight would be a perfect addition to their secret shadow techniques if utilized correctly." she said with a nod.


    This wasn''t the first time i heard about this as Shikamaru had mentioned it a few times over the years but I had always exined that I honestly wasn''t sure HOW exactly Kuma''s ability worked chakra wise. At first nce one would think it a fire release or even perhaps a yang release but I personally verified long ago that this wasn''t the case. Just the fact Kuma could draw literal lighting from the sun was bamboozling enough.


    Add the fact he could somehow then mix that light with chakra and belch it out like a bear shaped godzi and you could see my trouble in replicating the ability. Honestly I basically tossed figuring the ability out into the "spare time" portion of my list of things to do as I simply didn''t care enough to dedicate more focus than that on it. The ability was great and might have some awesome applications if used smarter than how Kuma utilized it but i wasn''t exactly pressed for techniques that fit that description now was I?


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    <em>Remove the spaces after the "A".</em>

 Explaining armor

    Exining armor


    "As I''ve told Shikamaru before, they are free to try and figure out how Kuma''s ability works if they want it so badly. I''m at a crucial part of the development of my chakra armor at the moment and have no time to waste doing that sort of work." I said and my sensei looked interested.


    "You keep mentioning this chakra armor technique of yours being in development but I find it hard to imagine that you of all people would struggle to develop a technique so much. It''s been what, a year and a half?" she asked and I nodded.


    "One year, seven months and fifteen days in truth. This technique is on a higher level than even the [rasengan] so naturally having created it from scratch means development on it is not a speedy endeavor. I don''t even have a timeframe for when it may beplete due to currently being stuck at a key point." I said slightly annoyed about the matter.


    "Higher than the [rasengan], the technique considered the pinnacle of chakra shape transformation and control, that [rasengan]?" she asked incredulously.


    "Ah I suppose I should rify, see when I say that I am not referring to on a conceptual basis but purely in terms of the actually difficulty in pulling both techniques off. The [rasengan] is a far easier technique to utilize because it is the vastly more stable and less demanding of the two. To even begin learning my chakra armor you need to be able to utilize all of your chakra points equally well while simultaneously having a level of control with your chakra that I have only seen you and the the third Hokage replicate. Naturally this makes my technique a higher tier than the rasengan in terms of difficulty." I said seriously.


    "This technique sounds oddly suitable for a Hyuga to learn." my senseimented in deep thought after my exnation.


    "I had a simr thought at first but from what I have seen of the n they''d never learn it as it would hinder their precious gentle fist until fully mastered." I said with a shrug.


    "I don''t understand how your technique would interfere with their gentle fist." she said honestly.


    "It''s a matter of mobility, while the way they exert chakra from theirwork seems simr to how you would create my chakra armor the true case is quite the opposite. Creating the chakra armor puts a heavy pressure on the body based on where it''s located, like a sort of increased weight if you would. This means fast precise movements be very difficult to use which effectively handicaps or even cripples the gentle fist style that traded force for precision and lethality. On the opposite spectrum however brute force styles of taijutsu such as yours, mine and Guy''s would be like adding wings and tripling the size of a tiger when we utilized the chakra armor." I exined seriously.


    "Surely it''s not that excessive right?" she asked astonished.


    I shook my head "On the contrary that was the minimum boost it would give at even the basic level of merely covering a single hand. Watch and you should understand." I said before holding up my right hand.


    Immediately bright blue chakra like mes visibly red up to coat my hand and under her astonished gaze darkened and seemed to solidify like a deep blue crystal gauntlet covering my hand. I then started changing the shape of the solidified chakra into sharp des, knuckles, hammers, ws and even webbed wings.-


    I then returned it to the standard configuration before holding my hand out t. "Punch it as hard as you can." I said and she ignored where we were and stood up before throwing her hardest punch square at the center of my palm.


    Her eyes bulged in shock when all that force seemed to vanish into my palm without a trace though the coloration of the "crystal" darkened drastically to an almost ck blue. I gave her a hand motion that meant "wait a moment" before getting up casually from the chair and walking over to the desk and grabbing a pencil with my thumb and pointer finger.-


    I pointed the pencil up and with a loud "BANG!" it was gone and my chakra armor returned to it''s normal color.


    "Kic absorption on top of form transformation!? What sort of ridiculous technique have you created!?" she eximed in horror.


    "Close but not quite. I didn''t absorb the kic energy of the attack but rather used it as fuel topress my chakra further by sending an equal amount of it to the location struck. In other words it would be more urate to say I transformed the force of your attack into a dense store of my own power waiting to be released like a firework with no holes, hence the vanished pencil." I said with a smile.


    "You mean the harder you get hit the harder you hit back?" she asked for rification.


    "Again not exactly, it''s more along the lines of the harder you hit me the worse the return of me releasing thatpressed chakra is for you. I don''t need to use it to add to my own strikes you know, I could release it for a burst of speed or even hold it nigh indefinitely to harden my armor even further making it drastically more difficult to break through it and damage me." I said honestly.


    "You weren''t kidding when you said that was the minimum before. A technique like this in the hands of a skilled taijutsu user would make the person using it a one man army even if they were a chunin." she said seriously.


    I shook my head "Even if I made a weaker, easier to use version than my current one no one below Jonin other than perhaps a Hyuga or Naruto would be able to utilize it. The cost in chakra and requirements for control are too heavy for anyone else below Jonin." I said seriously.


    "Compared to the [rasengan] what would it cost to use this theoretical technique?" she asked curiously.


    "At the standard size and cost of a [rasengan] I''d say it would cost maybe twenty of them without perfect chakra control and ten with it. This is because of the need to cover the whole body with the armor for full effect which is naturally far more expensive than a single orb covering the space of ones fist." I said honestly.


    She hissed in shock at that price since she knew that the [rasengan] was no cheap jutsu to create. As I had said my armor even dumbed down like that was the sort of thing that only a Hyuga, Jonin or someone with a lot of chakra were able to use without leaving themselves highly vulnerable due to chakra depletion.


    <em><strong>___________________________________________</strong></em>


    <em><strong>https://.pa /user?u=81578854#:~:text=pa /pa treon_loskro</strong></em>


    <em>Remove the spaces after the "A".</em>

 Snake bite

    Snake bite


    "What rank is that technique, S?" she asked.


    I shook my head "Right now I can only say it''s high A rank since it''s iplete. So far I can cover both of my arms and up to my waist but that''s where my current bottleneckes into y as I can''t get the chakra to go over my legs as well." I said honestly.


    "I see, you are aiming to create something like the Raikages lightning cloak then?" she asked and I shook my head again.


    "I figured that out a while ago, or at least I replicated the effects of said jutsu from what I have read. No what I am trying to replicate is the ability of all mangekyou sharingan, Susanoo. It was said to be the ultimate defense and if my understanding was correct also basically a pure chakra technique manifested through the eyes of the user for the Uchiha though they don''t know HOW exactly it worked. If I could see the thing in action myself I wouldn''t have so much trouble replicating it with pure chakra control as I would know what exactly I needed to do." I said frustrated.


    The conversation more or less ended there and I wandered the vige hoping to be struck by some form of inspiration to get out of this bottleneck. I wasn''t really paying attention at the time or I would have reacted before someone bumped into me and I felt a slight stinging sensation on my arm. I immediatelyshed out at the person but they justughed even as my hand went right through them. With a puff of smoke they vanished and I looked down at my left arm and frowned hard at the highly bent syringe sticking just under my hard skin there.-


    I ripped it out and immediately flickered back to my sensei as a slow burning sensation spread through the point of puncture to the rest of my body. She looked confused for all over a moment before she noticed the pain on my face and the syringe in my hand.


    "Guards lock down the vige! Someone attacked Kenzo!" she roared as she dashed over to me as my vision began to blur.


    PAIN


    That was all I could feel for the length of time that I was out of it, an agonizing amount of pain like I was being ripped apart and then salted.


    (3rd person POV)


    Moments after Kenzo dropped unconscious in the Hokages office the vige went on red alert while Tsunade worked to diagnose and treat Kenzo on the spot.


    ''This is.... cellr restructuring!? Damnit I need to slow the foreign cells advance until I can identify exactly what is going on!'' She thought seriously as she made a risky n and slowed his heart beat to the absolute minimum that she could without damaging him permanently.


    This drastically slowed the spread but hadn''t stopped it by any means. It was also far toote to remove the arm affected as the cells had spread beyond it to the rest of the body though in such small amounts that there was a chance to fight them off before they caused too much damage. Tsunade rushed Kenzo to the hospital ignoring any damage she caused in the process to the building and once there they put him on ice to further slow the spread of the foreign cells while the syringe he brought with him was taken to ab to be tested. Due to the rush put on it the results were gotten within two hours and reading it Tsunade knew exactly who was behind this.-


    "OROCHIMARU!" she spat out the word like it was the most disgusting taste she ever experienced.


    Indeed the snake sannin was the one responsible for this event and had taken quite the care with his preparations to make sure it went smoothly. For context the snake sannin had branched out his samples of notable lineages to try and discover something capable of creating the perfect bloodline fusion he wanted to inject into Kenzo. It was a stroke of luck then that he discovered that the Uchiha, Hyuga, Chinoike, Uzumaki, Senju, Kaguya and a few other scattered ns all had a shared ancestor. -


    In each individual n that ancestors genes had been diluted and scattered but Orochimaru was not one to shy from a difficult matter and set to work extracting these fragments and trying to piece them together. It had taken him until six months ago to obtain a stable fifty percentplete gic sample of this ancestor. He then worked to take the gic samples of Kenzo and fuse them with the sample of this ancestor which took another three months of work to finally seed at.-


    He then sequenced this new bloodline he had created and created a clone to see if the bloodline would serve his purpose. Two weekster he examined the nowplete clone and smiled greedily. There was no real issues at all besides the strange hornlike protrusions that grew from the clones head that he tested to be harmless. Excitingly though the eyes of the clone were in an iplete state much like those of any clones he made of the Uchiha or Hyuga which meant there was more likely than not a dojutsu there.-


    The clone was disposed of after it''s eyes were harvested since he had elerated it''s growth and thus shortened it''s lifespan to mere months to begin with. With this new bloodline done he now had to figure out how to inject it into Kenzo and so he went to work on that for the next two and a half months and finally enacted his n. The n was quite simple really, infiltrate Konoha with several shadow clones with civilian levels of chakra so as to not register in Kenzo''s senses. Then these clones would wait for an oppurtunity to inject Kenzo with the bloodline catalyst to prime his body to receive the bloodline.-


    Regardless of what his old teammate did once injected the catalyst couldn''t be stopped and without the follow up bloodline the boy would die meaning he''d be allowed toplete the n even if they wanted his head. Oh sure the first clone who appeared in front of his old teammate got killed in a fit of rage but he expected this and thus had a back up waiting.


    "He''ll die unless you allow me to inject this bloodline into him and no I won''t allow you to test it first lest you taint it and kill the boy. His death would be rather vexing for me you see. Besides I''m helping make him even more powerful so if anything you should be thanking me." the clone said with a slimy grin and chuckle.


    <em><strong>___________________________________________</strong></em>


    <em><strong>https://.pa /user?u=81578854#:~:text=pa /pa treon_loskro</strong></em>


    <em>Remove the spaces after the "A".</em>

 Snake bite(2)

    Snake bite(2)


    "Oh and I''m sure you are doing this from the goodness of your heart? Please don''t treat me like a fool Orochimaru, you gain something or rather think you will by doing this. I won''t stop you since you have no reason to lie at this point but if anything happens to him I''ll hunt you down even if I have to offend every other vige to do so." Tsunade said fiercely.


    The clones eyes narrowed as he felt her sincerity and knew that his main body might need to move bases soon as that was not a promise he wanted to test.


    "It''s a good thing he''ll be fine then isn''t it, now then for the injection. Kukuku his skin truly is like metal, it''s a good thing I used chakra metal needles for these syringes or they''d break before getting through." the clone said with a pleased expression.


    The syringe barely managed to prate Kenzo''s skin before bending but due to it''s construction it didn''t break so the bloodline was sessfully injected.


    "This next part is the most dangerous so why don''t we put our differences aside temporarily until he has fully integrated this bloodline?" the clone asked with a casual smile even as sweat began to pour out of Kenzo''s body with a disgusting dark red color like blood that was coagting.


    "Hmph!" Tsunade snorted but didn''t stop the clone from helping to stabilize this transition Kenzo''s body was undergoing.


    Internally Kenzo was changing in a manner that no one, not even Orochimaru himself could have predicted. This was not surprising considering it was due to a variable that the snake sannin couldn''t have known about when creating the clone of the bloodline previously, Kenzo''s constant sage mode.-


    The source of his constant state of sage mode was his soul and thus it wasn''t to be found in his genes and thus the clonecked this heavy factor. Gically speaking Kenzo''s body after being primed for it was epting the new bloodline like a fish to water. His old and qualitatively weaker cells were dying off as his body converted to the new and superior bloodline which was what was supposed to happen. This was unfortunately also where the unounted for factor jumped in and made a mess of things. Kenzo''s gift had been honing his body cell by cell for his entire life so when this new bloodline was epted by his body and being integrated his gift went to work refining it too.-


    That was a problem because this supercharged the new bloodline so rather than turning out like the clone Orochimaru made previously that was a pretty even mix of the ancestors genes and Kenzo''s it was now much purer as if Kenzo was a direct offspring of that ancestor. This meant that his entire body was now getting ripped apart by these dominant cells and reced by them. It was brutally violent and both Tsunade and Orochimaru panicked and went all out to keep Kenzo''s body from falling apart.-


    The clone ended up exhausting it''s chakra and dissipating which sent it''s memories to the original as well as the other clones.


    ''Damnit! I don''t understand! The bloodline was stable and perfect, I triple checked it personally so why is the reaction so bad!?'' Orochimaru thought genuinely worried that he had killed what he thought was the perfect vessel for him.


    He quickly created another clone and dispelled it which told his already existing clones in Konoha to rush to the hospital to aid in stabilizing Kenzo.


    Tsunade red at these clones but had her hands full just keeping her disciple alive much less scolding the clones that joined in midway. The destruction and recreation of Kenzo''s body finally reached a point where his life was no longer in danger nearly twelve hours after it began and all that was left now was to monitor the situation until he fullypleted the process. Shizune was left to watch over Kenzo while Tsunade and the clones took samples of the rejected materialing from Kenzo''s body to ab to try and understand what exactly was going on.-


    "Your part here is over with, dispel yourselves or I will." Tsunade said firmly to the clones.


    "Can you say for certain that you will not need my help to see him truly recovered? I admit that the situation went a beyond my expectations but no one is better than I in matters of cellr fusing." One of the clones asked with a slimy smile.


    "One, only one clone may stay." Tsunade said and the entirety of the clones save one dispelled themselves without hesitation.


    "Now then I believe we should hurry these samples to theb no?" thest clone asked smugly making the woman grit her teeth.


    (Normal POV)


    ''Ugh, I feel like someone stretched me like taffy before setting me on fire. My eyes feel the worst though, gods please don''t let me be blind that would really suck.'' I thought as I started to regain consciousness.


    I immediately tried to sense my surroundings with my chakra but all I got was a bunch of blurry nonsense and a stupid amount of pain from my chakra channels. Left with no choice I tentatively opened my eyes only to hiss and close them as blinding light filled my vision.


    "Woah there! Easy kid you''ve been through the wringer and aren''t ready to move yet." I heard my sensei say seriously.


    "Kukuku, looks like my times up." I heard the creepiest voices ever say with augh before a loud "PUFF!" sounded out tipping me off that it was a shadow clone.


    "Did someone get the name of the mountain that fell on me?" I asked jokingly with a raspy voice.


    "It was that snake Orochimaru, he injected you with some sort of bloodline that I can''t identify. It''s like nothing I''ve ever seen before. It almost seems inhuman." my sensei said seriously.


    "Oh joy, i''m part monster now. Not to be pushy or anything but could I have some water? I feel like i''ve inhaled a desert." I said and a few momentster cool water flowed into my mouth causing me to cough slightly before choking it down. "Much better, so what exactly happened. Thest thing I remember was showing up in your office before passing out." I said less raspy this time.


    My sensei then began to in detail exin exactly what had happened and how long I had been out. To say I was pissed would be a VAST understatement. In fact I was pretty sure that if my chakra reserves weren''t suspiciously empty that I would have sted apart the room with the sheer pressure I would have released at that moment. Oh Orochimaru was going to pay for this, dearly.


    <em><strong>___________________________________________</strong></em>


    <em><strong>https://.pa /user?u=81578854#:~:text=pa /pa treon_loskro</strong></em>


    <em>Remove the spaces after the "A".</em>

 Awakened and shattered perception

    Awakened and shattered perception


    I liked to think I was a fairly calm person, not easily provoked to anger. This though was a vition of myself on a depth beyond anythingparable. Orochimaru had not only attacked me but had fundamentally altered my body in a way that may as well make me an entirely different person. My rage was apocalyptical and that was more than enough to cause a change to ovee my eyes. It wasn''t the sharingan or byakugan that appeared though but something else, something new. ording to my sensei who was there and saw it my eyes were unnerving to behold.-


    My eyes turned red and lost both pupil and iris. In their ce a series of white veins snaked across the whole thing like lightning bolts and in the center of my eyes where the pupil used to be a single dot of gold shone. I was startled by these transformation but couldn''t miss the abilities of these eyes if I wanted to with how ringly obvious they were. I could see the energy in the air like a vast aurora of colors and my gaze pierced through flesh, bone and blood to see the energies of my sensei''s body.-


    That wasn''t the most startling ability that I gained however as in addition to that I could see a thread attached to my sensei that interacted with the energies of the world and painted a picture.


    ''I can glimpse the future!?'' I thought in shock as my sensei moved in the exact manner that the thread showed me onlyter than what I had seen.


    Her movements were also dreadfully slow in my new vision like watching a snail move. I couldn''t maintain this new state for long however before darkness overtook me again.


    When I woke up again she was missing but Karen was nearby and my eyes had seemingly returned to normal though not entirely. I could still see the energies floating through the air but they were blurry and hard to make out individually. The world also moved much slower than normally in my perception not at a snails pace but sort of like one of those slow motion scenes in a movie. I wasn''t sure how I knew but I simply understood that what I discovered wasn''t all my new eyes were capable of.-


    This time when I woke up I didn''t immediately try to move my projected my perception towards my own body and was startled at what I found. First and foremost my chakra had more than regenerated while I was out this time. In fact it felt absolutely abyssal with how vast and dense it was now. My chakrawork itself had also changed in an odd way as it now had many small pathways that hadn''t existed before Orochimaru did what he did. From head to toes my chakrawork was like a dense spiderweb that left no inch of my body uncovered.-


    The second thing I noticed was that my cells were ridiculously active and filled with energy. It felt as if each and every cell in my body was a miniature sun of vitality. There was one change that I was not the biggest fan of however in that on my head small bumps of bone were growing in what I could only describe as a crown of horns. There were a total of seven which was a suspicious number as it perfectly matched all the base chakra natures. Right now they were barely more than slightly raised ces on my head but I could tell they were growing.-


    "You''re awake!?" Karin eximed breaking me out of my thoughts.


    "I am." I said opening my eyes and looking at her.


    "How do you feel? Sensei Tsunade said that you passed out from overexertion of your chakra and might feel some difort after waking up." she said seriously while looking me over.


    "I feel off, not bad exactly but wrong and out of sorts. I''ll mount that snakes head on my wall for this." I said with a coldness that made Karin pale visibly.


    "I s-see." she said shakily while trying not to show a fearful expression.


    I saw this and felt my anger quickly get reced with guilt "I am sorry for speaking to you like that, you don''t hold any rtion to this and are unworth of being subjected to my wrath. I ask forgiveness for frightening you." I said apologetically.


    She waved her hands hurriedly "No no it''s fine I understand why you are angry. Anyone would be after something like this!" she said trying to wave off my apology as unnecessary.


    "You need not make excuses for me. My conduct just now while logical was unfair to you and deserved an apology. What would you like to make up for it?" I asked sincerely.


    She looked conflicted for a moment before my sensei walked in and interrupted "Why not ask for a date? This blockhead might never get the hint otherwise?" she suggested with a glint in her eyes.


    "What!? That!? You!? Ugh!" Karin fumbled in shock while turning as red as her hair before dashing out of the room.


    "An odd thing to suggest. Why would she even want something like that when we already live together and go out all the time?" I asked confused.


    My sensei rolled her eyes and sighed "You really are as dense as a brick sometimes for all that intelligence of yours. That girls been smitten with you since you rescued her in the forest of death but you are too dense to notice unless someone spells it out for you. It''s rather annoying to watch her dance about the topic all the time as well." she said bluntly leaving me speechless.


    "Huh? Well that exins a lot of inconsistencies. How troublesome." I muttered with a frown.


    "Wow, now that''s cold. I tell you that a girl is in love with you and you im it''s troublesome, it''s a wonder what she sees in you." My sensei teased and I snorted in irritation.


    "I can not be med for this matter as the way I see it we are too young to even contemte such things. If you had told me in a few more years I may have even been excited but now it is indeed quite troublesome. Now I have to figure out how to deal with this situation in a logical and well reasoned manner." I said with a groan while it was my sensei''s turn to be left speechless.

 Draw blood

    Draw blood


    I saw my sensei''s look and scoffed "Don''t make that face at me. Is it any surprise that I would try to categorize and add logic to even something like romance given how well you know me? As I said earlier I believe we were too young to think about such things and thus hadn''t had any such feelings towards Karin unlike her towards me. That may change now that I am aware of it but you can''t expect me to suddenly fall head over heels for her." I said and she thought about it for a moment before sighing and nodding in agreement.


    Nothing I had said was wrong given the circumstances and sad as that may seem assuming that me knowing how Karin felt would automatically make me reciprocate those feelings was t out foolish. Karin was a good choice of partners for me to begin with since we got along quite well after living together for so long so while learning she held feeling for me came as a surprise I wasn''t against the idea of pairing up with her. Honestly it wouldn''t really change much as far as I saw it beyond taking us both off the market.-


    "So are you going to start dating now?" my sensei asked curiously.


    "Up to Karin. I''m not the one pursuing her after all but rather it''s her that pursues me so naturally she will need to put in the work if she wants to get me." I said honestly.


    "I almost pity the girl given your high standards in every other regard." she said with amused look.


    "Enough about that though, I need to understand fully what the snake that bit me has done to me before I seek it out to cut off it''s head." I said seriously and she nodded.


    "I''ve tried to take blood samples after this transformation finished but well I failed. Your body is too tough to pierce through with any needle now, not even the chakra metal ones he used to cause this. I thought of using chakra but not even my chakra scalpel could leave more than a white mark on your skin." She said with a helpless look.


    "Hmm, give me a moment." I said and created a w of chakra on my pointer finger that I then pressed against my wrist hard.


    "SKKKKRRRRREEEE!"


    The sound of metal grinding against metal sounded out as my w slid across my skin but failed to prate at all.


    "Fine then, the hard way it is then." I muttered and reabsorbed the chakra w before projecting chakra out of my finger again that swirled before forming a small bead sized lightning [rasengan] that I sent straight at my wrist.


    Sparks flew as the miniaturized jutsu drilled against my skin and I finally felt some pain as it started to dig ever so slowly through my skin to hit a vein at which point I hurriedly tilted my wrist sending the small jutsu harmlessly through the floor as it was deflected.-


    "What was that jutsu?" my sensei asked curiously while not wasting any time collecting my blood in a vial as I forcefully fought against my own bodies healing factor to keep the wound open.


    "Lightning nature [rasengan], I miniaturized it but the principles behind it still work. It could be considered an S rank jutsu specialized in piercing through tough materials. I hadn''t expected it to struggle so much against my skin, fascinating is it not?" I exined genuinely amazed by the sheer defensive quality my flesh had now.


    "Are you insane!? You used an S rank jutsu of all things just to collect blood!?" she eximed in horror.


    "Not at all, even before that snake bit me I could resist most jutsu at B rank and judging by your exnation I assumed I had skipped A rank jutsu in terms of resistance and thus only an S rank jutsu or attack might work. I assure you I chose my cement for the jutsu in a location that wouldn''t cause much damage even if it went fully through my arm. Between the tendons and bones at an angle for minor injury in the worse case scenario." I said calmly.


    "You do understand how insane that sounds right?" she asked and I shrugged.


    "It was the best option I could think of. Though now that you mention it I will need to figure out an easier way to draw blood or the summoning jutsu will be unusable for me." I said with a frown.


    "I give up trying to understand how that brain of yours works. I''ll get this to theb to see what I can figure out. In the meanwhile I expect you to take it easy for the foreseeable future and I mean it Kenzo. No training at all AM. I. CLEAR?" she asked with a firm look as she emphasized thosest few words.


    I reluctantly agreed since while I honestly felt better than ever there was no telling what would happen if I tried to really push things. I had just gone through a fundamental transformation after all and such things were never simple matters. It wasn''t exactly the same thing but it was sort of how an Uchiha was affected by their eyes the further along they develop.-


    It was sort of an open secret but the sharingan caused the wielder to be colder and more emotionally unstable the further their eyes developed. This was theorized to be because their eyes made it impossible to forget things they saw including traumatic stuff. The phrase "all wounds heal with time" doesn''t apply to them as a result meaning they felt that same emotion every time they recalled any incident as if they were still experiencing that incident. It only got so much worse the more drastic the transformation of their eyes as each further stage of development required a stronger emotional trigger than thest.-


    My own transformation probably didn''t have such a nasty side to it but I REALLY wasn''t willing to test that Idea without some evidence to back it up first. I was a little peeved that I couldn''t work on my chakra armor too since I felt as if my chakra was smoother and more obedient. Just the ease by which I was able to summon that w and lightning [rasengan] earlier was proof enough for me to make that assumption as neither of those were simple techniques.

 Ocular oddities

    Ocr oddities


    I had always been prodigious with chakra control and usage but not even I could form such things without at least a little diligence, no one could. Sure people have made it LOOK easy to use or create [rasengan] but the fact was they merely had so much practice that the chakra control could be done in a very short time. This didn''t mean the technique was any easier just they were used to doing so. Now though it took merely a thought of manipting my chakra for it to preemptively do as I wished, like breathing almost.-


    Naturally I assumed that this only extended to things I already knew how to aplish but without testing it on a new jutsu I wouldn''t be quite certain. Chakra oddities aside I also had toe to terms of understanding about where my body and more importantly my eyes stood at the moment. I had already tested my durability when I drew blood and my regeneration as well that was inhumanly strong now. I still needed to test how strong I was physically however which was not such a simple matter.-


    Even before this transformation testing my strength was difficult as there was simply not any sort of equipment capable of testing such a thing. It was also sort of frowned upon to cut off a mountain and then dead lift it. The best option avable was in the form of gravity seals that made your body feel the effects of different gravities on it and heavy weights. With enough weights and high enough gravity one could in theory understand ones limits. The problem however was there was not nearly enough weights or high enough gravity seals to push me to my limit.-


    I only barely reached twenty tons thanks to five times gravity before I literally couldn''t go higher. not because of me but because I ran out of room for more weights and the gravity seals only went up to five. By the way I could lift all those weights off me with a single arm and only felt a little strain.


    ''It''s a good thing I hadn''t tried to punch anything or I may have burnt an area with sheer friction.'' I thought astonished at these results.


    Despite my strength though I found it easy to control my power not to cause harm just by moving in the simplest way.-


    Testing my eyes however came at the cost of severalplications. The first was that they drained a MASSIVE amount of chakra per second. In fact I estimated that for anyone else the cost would be enough to kill a elite Jonin from chakra depletion in a mere four seconds. The secondplication was that the perception shift the eyes gave me when I activated them was downright horrific. I''m talking straight up acid trip levels of "what the hell am I looking at?". Not exactly a pleasant experience at all let me tell you.-


    Instinctually I understood what I was looking at but then again how could I not when I watched it enter and exit my body in a constant quantity? Natural energy came in "vors" I suppose was the best way to exin it. See the way the stuff worked was that it flowed to and from all things and in the process was take on traits of those things which together formed the very essence of the world. My new vision let me see this energy, well ALL energy really as I could see chakra, spiritual and physical energies alongside natural energy.-


    Much like the sharingan or byakugan my eyes also saw through flesh and bone to witness the energies within the body as well. It took me a whole day to categorize and understand what color meant what. My eyes had other abilities as well but the only other passive ability they had was to see exactly three seconds into the future of living beings. This in particr was both bane and boon for me as it gave me a sort of heads up on the future but at the same time was annoying as it felt like watching aggy video y out.-


    The way I saw the future y out was also rather odd as I watched the energies of the person or thing leave their body before manifesting as threads around them the moved to mime the future over the person like a superimposed image of a different moment. My eyes also had three abilities that were active rather than passive and terrifying to boot. The first was [deconstruction] that allowed me to turn anything I looked at to it''s base elements. The second was [reaper form] that sent my soul out of my body while simultaneously allowing me to directly sever or manipte souls if I so wished.-


    My most startling realization with this ability was that if I got to someone within a reasonable enough time I could even resurrect the dead. Thetest I found that this applied was seventy two hours after which the soul was too far gone for me to reach without going to the bright aurora I saw in the sky when in this state that I was fairly certain was the purend(shinobi afterlife). While I had a feeling I could freely enter and exit the ce in this form I wasn''t willing to risk it on ount of that being a very stupid way to die if I couldn''t return for some reason.-


    The final ability was ... odd. As far as I could tell it was simple chakra nature transformation but I gained ess to a sort of white energy substance that was able to turn into anything I imagined. I dubbed this [creation] as a result and made sure to keep it to myself. While not destructive at all this had VERY big implications that were more than enough to send the world into the next great shinobi war to see me dead.-


    Being able to create anything I imagined meant that rare and valuable things like chakra metal could be effectively mass produced without cost. While being able to deconstruct anything I looked at was highly dangerous on a battlefield and my [reaper form] basically gave me the power of a god of death these were rather small area of effects. Important enough to make the other viges try everything to kill me but still not enough to tip the bnce TOO much. Resources though could make or break a shinobi war and if I could say outfit the entirety of Konoha in chakra metal gear and top of the line equipment down to thest genin, well that was bad news for the other viges.

 Date

    Date


    I kept these abilities to myself and didn''t even tell my sensei about them as a result of how dangerous the information was. While I trusted her I also knew that this was something far too impactful for her to keep to herself from the vige. Knowing this I simply chose to remove the burdensome information from the equation by keeping it to myself. This way if it eventually leaks somehow she can honestly im ignorance as she genuinely didn''t know. That said I may or may not have taken slight advantage of it to renovate my house.-


    It was a bit tricky but I figured out how to create a material that was exactly the same as wood but with three key differences. The first was that there was no grain to the material since it hadn''t actually been grown like a tree. The second was that it was as hard and durable as chakra metal due to it''s high density. The final part was that it was HIGHLY chakra resistant for the off chance my house got attacked. By resistant I mean any jutsu below B rank wouldn''t damage it at all.-


    I effectively 3d printed each of the parts for my house with my [Creation] ability and rebuilt the whole ce with this superior material. Karen had been more or less absent during this time as she was still caught up in her insecurities after my sensei had exposed her. Honestly I was a little offended that she thought so little of me. I wasn''t such a heartless bastard as to hate her or something stupid like that for developing feelings for me. Still I didn''t press the matter and let her have her space until she figured out how she wanted to handle this situation.-


    As I quickly discovered however everyone including my beasts all thought Karin and I were a couple already so I got more than a few weird looks when the gossip of the truth of the matter got out. My ssmates even teased me about it when they ran into me at the ramen shop or on the way back to my home. Teuchi even admitted that he had assumed we were dating already after how well we acted together. It honestly felt like the only person who hadn''t thought this was the few who actually understood what was going on and of course me.-


    "Um, do you, um want to go out with me?" Karin eventually brought herself to ask nervously while fidgeting shyly.


    "Sure , what do you have in mind?" I asked calmly.


    "What? Really!?" she eximed in surprise.


    I nodded "I did agree yes. Is that so odd?" I asked confused since I was under the impression it was a matter of time anyways.


    "I just, I don''t know thought you''d be more unwilling I guess?" she said a little lost.


    "Why? It''s not like this changes much. We have lived together and regrly went out together so all that is different is the context behind it." I said honestly.


    She paused for a moment looking deep in thought before blushing as she realized that I was right. She had probably been so caught up in the context until now that she failed to realize that we were already acting simr to a couple just without the more intimate stuff.


    "So what did you have in mind, I have no preferences as you know." I said with a smile.


    "Um maybe go see the merchants and get food?" she said unsure of herself.


    "Alright then, shall we?" I asked with a smile while holding out my hand for her to take it.


    She almost squealed in joy at holding hands with me and a smile threatened to split her face as we walked through the vige. The vigers just gave us knowing smiles and a few of older folk evenplimented us as a couple. I more or less also let Karin dictate the pacing of the date and may as well have been an essory for her to show off. Something that she definitely didn''t mind taking advantage of at all stroll in a convoluted manner around the vige before we finally hit the merchants.-


    "Hey look at this!"


    "It''s so pretty!"


    "Can I have this?"


    I was subjected to every mans woe when we got there though as she went into shopping mode. Jewelry, clothes, bits and bobbles that had no practical application you name it and she at least spared it a nce if it was there. My role? I was the bank of course buying whatever her heart was set on while trying not to punch the smug merchants that were overcharging after hyping their products.-


    ''Thirty thousand ryo for a hair clip she probably won''t ever wear again.'' I thought at the most recent purchase she made.


    It was a bejeweled onyx butterfly hairpin with a silver base material that while of good quality had absolutely zero utility beyond looking nice as it held hair in ce. This shopping trip was rather rather extravagant considering it ended up costing me nearly half a million ryo and I only bought three things for myself. The first was a scroll detailing a rather advanced form of acupuncture that used to belong to a n that was forced to sell their secret art to survive.-


    The technique was a good addition to the iryonin techniques we had here in Konoha and something I''m sure my sensei will be happy to have since every little bit helps where medicine is concerned. As an added bonus it would be something that may interest the few Hyuga n members that specialized in iryonin jutsu as it worked well with their byakugan. The second thing I bought was a puzzle box that had a surprising amount of natural energy around it and to my surprise couldn''t be seen through with my new perception.-


    This peaked my interest and the sheerplexity of the design only served to hold it as it looked like a d20 the size of a basketball at first nce but was so much more than that. It held thousands of odd symbols that functioned as buttons and could be turned, twisted and rotated to advance the puzzlespletion. The final thing I bought was both to be expected and interested Karin at the same time, a small bright yellow frog in a ss enclosure.


    "Is it a chakra beast?" she asked looking at the thing in the ss case curiously.


    "Not exactly, it''s got the potential to be one but what I find most curious about it is thatst I checked this species of frog was extinct due to where they liked to live." I said honestly.

 Toxic personality

    Toxic personality


    "Really? Why, it''s so cute?" Karin asked surprised at my answer.


    "While it''s bright yellow coloration is indeed very attractive to the eye it is also a warning to any would be predators. It says "I''m poisonous, don''t eat me!". Ironically it was because of this very same poisonous naturepounded by the ces they liked to live that they were killed until none could be found anymore. They liked dark, cool, watery habitats with lots of moss and bugs, in other words wells. The toxins in their skin would leech into the water and those that drank it fell ill and more often then not perished as a result." I exined calmly while Karin gasped in shock as she looked at the small frog in a new light.


    "Does that mean that this is probably thest member of the species?" she asked curiously.


    I shook my head "Unlikely given how frogs reproduce. Theyy dozens of eggs at a time and if only half of those survive long enough to reproduce themselves that number would explode in a short period of time. More likely than not there is a colony of these frogs somewhere that survived the culling and this little fellow was unlucky enough to be spotted and captured by the merchant who saw the possibility of someone wanting such a vibrant creature." I said with a smile.


    "Why did you buy it if that''s true then?" she asked confused.


    "Because the value of these frogs was also the reason they were killed, their toxin. If properly applied it is a very potent anesthetic and with a steady supply of the toxin cheap as well. My sensei would be more than happy if I were to create a small habitat for a colony of these frogs for the vige." I said and she smiled.


    "That sounds about right." she said as we moved on.


    Once we were done shopping Karin dragged me to an expensive couple restaurant that was disgustingly pink. The entire menu wasprised of dishes meant to be eaten by two people that had cheesy names like "lovebird shake" or "lovers embrace". We got some astonished looks when not only did we NOT share our food with each other but we both ate enough to feed ten people easy. That was a fat hundred thousand ryo gone but admittedly we both enjoyed the food so it''s fine.-


    We talked on the way home after eating as we walked nice and slowly.


    "Today was... pleasant. You may approach me again for another such time in the future should you like to." I said pausing slightly at the start to choose my words carefully.


    Shae giggled "You really are terrible with this sort of thing aren''t you?" she teased with a smile.


    "What did you expect from a recluse?" I asked rhetorically with a shrug.


    When we finally got home she gave me a quick peck on the cheek before running away with her face as red as her hair leaving me stunned on the spot.


    I eventually just chuckled and shook my head before going to the crystal cavern I slept in normally. I found it easier to rest in a ce full of natural energy like this but that may just be because it eased the trouble my passive sage mode went through to maintain itself. More abundant natural energy naturally meant that my body didn''t have to gather the stuff due to scarcity. It also helped that I didn''t have to suppress my senses here as for some reason I couldn''t perceive anything through these crystals.-


    I had thought of creating a door out of the crystals for the cavern so I couldn''t sense what was down the cave leading to it but thought better of it in the end. The next five days were fairly peaceful as I worked to create a fitting and essible but enclosed area for my new frog to live. It wouldn''t do for any of the future inhabitants of the ce to get out and possibly enter the wells around the vige after all. It wasn''t even that hard to set up as there was a ce a few feet below the ground where water naturally collected until it was absorbed by ack of rain to keep the soil moist.-


    All I had to do was dig down to that point before creating an earth release dome to cover the hole and install a small area with two screen doors to keep any frogs from escaping when someone came in to collect their toxins in a nonlethal fashion. The toxins were quite potent so even a little went a long way. Perhaps the vige may cull their numbers once there is too many but when there is only a few this worked fine.-


    I needed to import some of the moss the frogs liked and had the Aburame n help with the bugs they liked but I got the ce more or less self sustaining and added the frog in. I had already inquired as to where the merchant found it to begin with and my sensei had issued a mission to search that area and bring back at least neen more members of the species. The squad assigned this task also needed to mark down where they found the things on a map in case the transferred poption failed to survive for some reason.-


    At the end of this week my sensei finally got back to me about the results of my blood tests. I was also required to go in for an examination but at the end I was given a clean bill of health. Despite this however my sensei put heavy emphasis on me reporting any difort in my body regardless of how minor. I didn''t hesitate to agree here as I was frankly bored out of my mind since I couldn''t train this whole time.-


    Cleared to train I wasted no time at all seeing what changes my transformation had caused to my ability to utilize my chakra armor. Covering my arms and torso was easy and while I felt a little resistance once it went to my waist it formed there as well no problem. Finally it began to stall at my knees and came to a snails pace at the middle of my shins.-


    ''Ah man so close, just a bit more and then my head toplete the technique finally'' I thought excitedly.

 Dead snake

    Dead snake


    I was a little disappointed at not fullypleting my armor in one go but even I had to admit that after my transformation the speed I had at pushing it towardspletion had tripled at least. If before it took me a month to get an inch of progress now I got that in a week or so. Even with this I had a sudden jump in mastery of my beasts abilities as well. As it turned out being able to visibly see the way their energy moved when they used it rather than just sensing it did wonders in this regard.-


    Thanks to this I even finally managed to copy my lizards invisibility in all it''s overpowered glory.


    "You are just going to hand it over, just like that?" my sensei asked confused when I went to turn over the scroll with the techniques details on it.


    I shrugged "I had agreed with the old man to do so once I figured it out and I am a man of my word. Besides it doesn''t work on me anymore." I said honestly.


    "Your eyes?" she asked and I nodded.


    "Not even this stealth ability can hide from these eyes." I said with a sigh.


    "Hmm, what about any other abilities, has anything else manifested yet or was that energy vision it?" she asked seriously.


    I remained silent at that and she got the message and didn''t press. I left shortly after and headed for Ichiraku. Suddenly someone jumped out of the crowd to try and stab me with a needle but I caught the person by the wrist easily.


    "You didn''t seriously think I''d fall for the same trick twice did you?" I couldn''t help but ask the person who upon adding some force to my grip reverted back to the pale form of one Orochimaru.


    "KUKUKU! Of course not!" he said with augh before bursting into smoke as this clone was dispelled.


    ''You must have me confused for someone else, escaping me is not so easy!'' I thought as I exerted my will on the natural energy in the air to grasp the rapidly fading connection that had existed between the main body and this shadow clone.


    ''Sage art: Worldly tribtion!'' I thought as I hijacked the connection and used it to send the snake a little present in the form of a massive amount of angry sage chakra.


    For anyone not familiar with the shadow clone technique this would be next to impossible to do but I knew quite well that the way each clone sent back their memories upon being dispelled meant that there was a connection between them and the source of them. Thanks to my eyes I could see this connection and using my power as a sage grab it and use it against the person who used it.-


    <strong>(3rd person POV, hidden base at the edge of thend of fire.)</strong>


    "Ah! The more you resist the more I want your body for myself!" The true body of Orochimaru said with a lecherous look as he received the memories of his shadow clone.


    His eyes suddenly widened in instinctual terror however and he looked around in a panic trying to discover the source of his unease. He failed to do so before his body got invaded by a massive amount of violent and corrupted sage chakra with one job, kill him. The pale serpentine sannin barely had the time to register this invading chakra before his body detonated violently.-


    The dense violent energy exploded from within his body sting it apart before he could activate any of his lifesaving measures. It didn''t stop there but turned into a violent storm centered around this location ripping the whole hidden base apart from the inside out. For those nearby it was as if a hurricane had sudden manifested underground and was tearing it''s way up to the freedom of the sky. It was a cmity of great proportions, or rather it would be if it wasn''t for the fact that the storm seemed to vanish as fast as it appeared.-


    "Was it some sort of battle between ninjas?" someone asked confused.


    "Maybe it was a dragon sealed below the ground rolling over?" someone else suggested.


    Spections abounded but none were brave enough to investigate for themselves as no matter the case it was definitely beyond their means.


    <strong>(Normal POV)</strong>


    After sending my "gift" to Orochimaru I headed back to my sensei and told her what happened.


    "That snake must think I''m some soft target that he can get away with bullying!" she said mming her fist on the desk in anger.


    "Oh I doubt he''s thinking much of anything at the moment." I said with a chuckle.


    "What do you mean?" she asked confused.


    "Oh I mean he basically just got hit inside his body with an S rank jutsu, all without any defenses set up. Do you think he walked away from that unscathed? I wouldn''t be surprised if it killed him outright." I said with a cold smile.


    She looked stunned for a moment and fell into thought with her brows furrowed before nodding. "Indeed even for him that might prove impossible to walk away from. I''ll send out an anbu squad to see if they can confirm his death or not." she said seriously.


    It didn''t take long at all for the site of the event to be found and the squad that went admitted in their report they very much doubted anything near the source of the damage survived. They couldn''t say for certain if Orochimaru had perished or not as not even a shred of clothing or drop of blood remained for Identification. Seeing this my sensei refused to say for sure that her old teammate was dead as he had more than once faked his death so this was by no means a new thing.-


    I didn''t push the matter beyond there however as regardless of what the truth was Orochimaru was unlikely to be a problem for some time if ever again. Still this second infiltration from the guy proved the impetus forpletely redesigning the seal barrier around the vige. It had been made clear that people were far too familiar with the barrier and could thus bypass it pretty much whenever they wanted. My sensei ended up conscripting me for this matter not as a sealer because I was not familiar with seals but rather to integrate sage chakra into the barrier in an unprecedented move.

 Power

    Power


    It should be understood that while I was certainly not the only sage to exist in Konoha since it''s founding I was the only one with enough sage chakra to possibly pull off something like this. For all the other sages of Konoha(which was the First Hokage and Jiraiya) sage mode was sort of like a temporary boost and burned through their chakra at a rapid rate. For me however I had always been in sage mode and thus technically didn''t burn my chakra to maintain it as it was my natural state.-


    I also had enough chakra to match a tailed beast drop for drop all the way up to the nine tails. This was both a boon and a curse as so much chakra also meant that if I didn''t suppress it within my body the leakage alone would be enough to bring most chunin to their knees out of suppressive weight alone. In this case though my chakra pool was a boon as it meant I could effectively work as the battery for the new barrier that stretched over the entire vige. -


    Obviously not permanently but just during the construction phase of the barrier where the most chakra was wasted. I ended up sitting cross legged in the center of a seal formation radiating my chakra passively while I meditated.


    "How you holding up brat?" My sensei asked worriedly.


    I opened my eyes and smirked "You may want to tell them to up the drain, I regenerate the stuff faster than this is taking it." I said smugly.


    "Of course a monster like you would say that, I don''t even know why I thought this would make you ufortable at all?" she said with a roll of her eyes.


    "Jokes aside you sure this is enough to work with? If we are doing this I''d like it to be the best possible so no need to be considerate, take all my chakra if it''ll make it stronger." I said seriously.


    "Are you sure about this Kenzo?" she asked seriously.


    I nodded "Yes, lets make a barrier unlike anything the worlds ever seen before." I said with a grin.


    She nods before turning to the group of seal masters working nearby "You heard him, he wants better than your best so make it happen!" shemanded and the seal masters took on expressions of determination as they got to work.


    The results of my decision became clear immediately as the drain increased dramatically and finally exceed my regeneration by a smidge. This alone shocked the seal masters as well as my sensei because the current drain was enough to turn an elite jonin to a shriveled corpse in ten minutes but was BARELY more than my natural regeneration of chakra. I was also surprised by this as I likely never would have discovered this aspect of myself without this endeavor. Jutsu were sort of one time payment things so anytime I used one I barely felt the amount of chakra needed for them.-


    Due to this finding my actual rate of chakra regeneration was rather difficult as I had never had enough of a drain to urately measure it. While I was d to finally understand this I couldn''t help but feel a bit embarrassed at the envious looks I got from my sensei and the seal masters. While I felt the drain from the formation I had the brilliant idea to begin experimenting with my chakra armor since I''d now have a potent external source "attacking" it. -


    My sensei just looked at me speechlessly as the bright blue chakra construct manifested on my body in an unstable manner as the chakra it was made up of was rapidly being ripped away by the formation. I merely grinned and worked to stabilize the armor against the pull of the formation which proved an excellent idea as I was forced to extend the armor over my feet to stave off that weak point. Honestly this only worked because I deluded my body into thinking I was in a life threatening situation and thus had it pulling out all the stops to save me.-


    ''All that''s left is to extend the armor over my head and the technique will finally beplete. Best to leave that for when I am not getting drained of chakra so aggressively.'' I thought satisfied once I got the hang of covering my full body in my chakra armor.


    "From the looks of it you should have the moniker "Konoha''s blue beast" rather than Might Guy." my sensei said and I shook my head.


    "I''d rather not have any moniker at all if I can help it, if I joined a battlefield it''d be bullying at this point." I said honestly.


    I meant it too as whether it was my chakra reserves, jutsu repertoire, taijutsu or physical durability I was next to impossible for anyone to match. Not even chakra metal can prate my skin so I could literally stand still in the middle of the average shinobi army and take no damage at all. If I fought back I was literally an army of one as I could route an entire army by myself. I included the general of that army as well that was either an S rank or high elite jonin historically.-


    I had to grudgingly admit that I was an S rank threat at this point simply due to my unkibleness. There was no other way to see it as the most dangerous sort of shinobi was the one that wasn''t afraid of getting hurt. Sure it could be argued that destructive capability was also an important factor but what''s more threatening. A shinobi that can burn everything for miles but can be killed with a kunai or one that can burn a smaller area but is practically immune to physical damage and all jutsu up to S rank?-


    In a short confrontation easily the first type but in a long drawn out affair like a battle the second wins hands down. I was approaching a perfect fusion of both types as myrge area jutsu were also quite powerful. So yes I was an S rank shinobi and ording to my sensei easily the hardest to deal with for anyone who wasn''t the Third Tsuchikage Onoki. Dust release was just that dangerous and not even my defenses were likely to stand up to it at all. I certainly wasn''t going to argue this fact either knowing how dangerous Shiro''s ability that was on the same level was.

 Done

    Done


    I more than most understood that my cranes frozen power wasn''t nearly as simple as it first appeared. For many the sheer fact that he could freeze things in a short period of time was all they needed to know but I had personally verified that there was more to the power than that. Shiro''s ability didn''t just freeze things but directly ceased all movements of the atoms thatprised it in an area around him. Besides the insane chakra cost the only weakness the ability had was that it didn''t really have any ranged application.-


    It was sort of like a methrower in that while you COULD hit something in the distance with it everything between you and that target also gets burnt or frozen in this case. The only really difference was that Shiro could sort of control the precision of the ability to minimize coteral damage, yes minimize not remove. Even after my transformation I got a deep sense of unease whenever Shiro used it''s ability in close proximity to myself so I didn''t doubt at all that Dust release that was absolutely more destructive in nature could outright kill me or at the very least get close.-


    Anyways after that matter was done with I turned my attention fully onpleting my chakra armor technique. All that I had left was the head but that was the most dangerous of all the parts of the body as one wrong move meant death. Ironically it was also the easiest to work on as it held the second densest collection of chakra veins and points in the body meaning less trouble for me to use chakra there.That said it was so dangerous that I didn''t practice creating the armor there at all unless my sensei was nearby in case of emergency.-


    Creating a half mask of chakra armor over my mouth and nose went smoothly but when I got to my eyes and higher things got dangerous. My transformation had created new chakra veins to my eyes that I was still getting used to so the chakra I exerted around them was rather unstable. Something I discovered by ident and put a damper on things was that I couldn''t actually create chakra armor over my eyes as my eyes activated every time I tried and dispelled it.-


    Finally after a month of effort with myself and my sensei Ipletely covered my entire body save two holes over my eyes with my armor.


    "So it''s finally done huh?" my sensei said as she looked over mypleted armor.


    From an outside perspective it was an almost otherworldly thing as it was almost perfectly smooth bright glowing blue energy with no features at all in it''s standard configuration. It was like if you took a human and removed all signs of hair, muscles, bone structure and skin and reced it with a being of pure energy that was shaped like a human butcked any discernable features.


    "Indeed, all that is left is to master using it and the entire process would beplete." I said pleased with the result.


    "It sort of reminds me of the state a jinchuriki can enter by releasing their tailed beasts power. Less chaotic though that''s for sure." she said honestly as I withdrew the chakra that made up the armor.


    "Hmmm, I haven''t seen that state myself but there are records of it from the jinchuriki''s of the cloud and mist using it in battle. If I ever get the chance to see it myself I might makeparisons." I said calmly.


    "What are your ns now that you won''t be spending the majority of your time working on this technique?" she asked with a mischievous glint in her eyes.


    "I''m not taking any students so you can drop that idea." I said and she clicked her tongue.


    "That obvious huh?" she asks with a slightly annoyed look.


    I chuckle "You''ve been trying to convince me to take students for quite some time now so it''s not odd that I''d figure out what you were after given the timing of your previous question. Besides I have taken a look at the current graduating ss of the academy and none of them are worth my time." I said honestly.


    I meant it too as while the ss had some decent talent in it none of it''s members had any obvious talents that would make them worth me giving them the time to train under me. A bit arrogant that may sound but my pride had nothing to do with it in truth. The way I think and my personality simply weren''t that great for teaching others and even came across as condescending if I wasn''t careful.-


    Hell the only reason Naruto was able to learn from me despite this was that he had long since gotten desensitized to who I was as a person and knew I wasn''t intentionally being mean, most of the time anyways. With this in mind the only way I could justify taking a student would be if they were talented to an extreme degree or special in some way that applied to me specifically. That didn''t mean I didn''t understand where my sensei wasing from as her being the Hokage meant she had to worry about the long term strength of the vige and that meant trying to get the powerful shinobi of the vige to hopefully pass that power on.-


    For anyone else that might be enough for them to take a student but I was both extremely young for the power I held and likely to outlive the grandchildren of the grandchildren of the studentsing from the academy this year. I was a sage and that meant if I wasn''t killed I had a VERY long life ahead of me. The funny bit was that I STILL wasn''t at the peak of my power as my body was still only fourteen years old.-


    I still had at least another six years before my body stopped maturing and another thirty after that before I "supposedly" shouldn''t be able to improve my body any further. This was based on normal shinobi standards mind you and only the gods knew if it still applied to me or if I''d simply never stop growing in power. I believe that theoretically the limit of my power was that of the entire world all at once but I had no clue beyond spection. I am referring to being able to effectively control the entire world all at once rather than literally being able to create sized attacks.-


    Even still that was a mind boggling level of power on it''s own that honestly couldn''t be considered any less than godly. Then again this was purely theory to me at this point as I simply hadn''t the information to assume further.


    "Can''t me me for trying. We only have three S rank shinobi in the vige at the moment and one of them is wandering thend with our jinchuriki who knows where. We are not in an ideal position in terms of power if a war were to break out." she said with a sigh.

 S rank plan

    S rank n


    "Hmm, that reminds me but what about Kakashi? He has enough chakra to cross S rank thanks to the strain that eye ced on him and with all those stolen techniques of his he should count as S rank too right?" I asked curiously and she frowned.


    "The thing stopping him from reaching S rank is that he''s TOO spread out and while not weak at anything in particr he''s also not outstanding at it either. His versatility ces him at the top of elite Jonin but also keeps him from going to the next level as he''s missing the sheer power needed for it. That Sharingan also heavily limits the amount of his chakra he can use due to it passively sapping his chakra even when he has it sealed shut." she said seriously.


    "So what you mean to say is that he needs a kick in the butt to reach that point?" I asked with a gleam in my eye as I had an idea.


    "So long as you don''t cripple or kill him go nuts if you think you can push him past that threshold." she said with a smirk.


    My n was simple really, sage mode. I was going to basically force Kakashi into that state whether he wanted it or not. Honestly speaking it was the fastest method I could think of to give the silver haired man the boost he needed to cross into S rank. The trick was that I had no intention of being gentle about it at all. I was more or less going to force natural energy into the mans body and force him to get it right or risk turning to stone. Naturally I had no intention of actually allowing him to petrify and was going to force out the excess natural energy in his body before that but that was not going to be a pleasant process for him at all.-


    Finding the man was easy as he was usually at either Ichiraku or checking a publishers shop for the next copy of Jiraiya''s raunchy series. If he wasn''t there then he was at the memorial stones sulking about those he''s lost. The vige was bustling today as vigers walked about on their errands and you could see shinobi mixed in with the crowd harmoniously. One such shinobi was a certain silver haired man with half his face covered and his attention focused on a book no child should ever be given.-


    "Are you seriously reading smut in public?" I asked the man as I arrived next to him.


    "It''s art not smut, not that you''d understand." he said without looking up from the book.


    "Whatever you say. That''s not why I am here though. How would you like to finally reach S rank in a short period of time?" I asked temptingly.


    He sighed and folded the corner of the page he was on before putting the book away in his vest.


    "What''s the catch?" he asked with a doubtful look.


    "It''s going to be a bit .... unpleasant and it involves one of my secrets so under no circumstances are you to spread it. My sensei and a few others are also aware of it so no need to worry about if it was something forbidden." I said honestly.


    "If it''s not some forbidden technique how could you get me to S rank in a short period of time?" he asked now more confused than suspicious.


    "This isn''t the best ce to talk about this,e with me to my house and I''ll exin as much as you want." I said and he took only a few moments to agree.


    "Lead the way." he said and I grinned before flickering to the top of the buildings.


    Not at my full speed obviously since he''d never be able to follow that without his Sharingan but still fast enough to show that I was much faster than he was. Not that he was all that surprised about this as my speed was a well known thing to anyone who knew me for any real length of time. We quickly crossed the vige and reached the npounds that surrounded my home and besides the odd look he gave my neighbors when they waved as I passed didn''t say anything.-


    "This ce is just as wild as the rumors say it seems." he noted out loud when we entered mynd that was vibrantly alive with life.


    "I prefer the term "natural" but yes everything is for the most part untamed here. The reason for this will be made clear shortly." I said before leading him to my house at the far side of the property.


    "A rather simple ce isn''t it?" he asked surprised.


    I chuckled "What did you expect, a mansion?" I asked sarcastically.


    "With your wealth yes." he said honestly.


    "It''s just me and Karin here so I have no need for something like that." I said with a shrug.


    "I suppose not." he said nodding in agreement.


    Soon we entered my house but I didn''t stop there and directly lead him to the cave at the back of it.


    "Something about this ce feels strange, heavy almost." he said seriously.


    "You aren''t the first person to say that, my sensei had simr thoughts when she came here." I said calmly.


    When we reached the crystal chamber Kakashi paused for a moment in wonder but I ignored that and took a seat on the mat in front of the crystal tree facing him.


    "This is my meditation chamber where I spend most of my time during the day. Take a seat and I''ll exin why I brought you here." I said calmly.


    He did as I said and I fulfilled my side of things by exining that I was a natural sage and what that meant. I also exined that the heavy feeling he goting here was the dense natural energy in the air that filled the ce thanks to myself and the tree behind me.-


    I also exined that thanks to my control over natural energy I was able to ensure that sages in training wouldn''t perish due to being unable to bnce the intake and outtake of natural energy in their bodies. Finally I revealed that I nned to teach him sage mode to push him into S rank.


    "You think I can learn sage mode?" he asked astonished.


    I chuckled "Anyone can learn sage mode, the reason they don''t is that without a talent towards controlling natural energy they get overwhelmed by the stuff and die. You won''t have that problem since I would rip out any natural energy if it became too much for you to handle. In other words acting as an external source of control until you no longer need it." I exined honestly.

 Bullying Kakashi

    Bullying Kakashi


    "What about my chakra? It''s no secret that my sharingan leaves me with less than an optimal amount." he pointed out seriously.


    I scoffed "You think I hadn''t taken that into ount when deciding on this? Sage mode can more or less be simplified to a ratio of natural energy and chakra being mixed together. The mistake that everyone seems to have is thinking that this means they gain more energy then they have and thus the state runs out quickly as they burn through their supply. The truth of the matter is that your store of energy doesn''t change at all by achieving sage mode beyond the passive enhancement you body receives. This indirectly causes your chakra amount to grow but that''s basic chakra growth theory and mostly dismissible." I exin easily.-


    "So if I were to treat my chakra as a precious resource like usual I have nothing to fear then?" he asked for rification and I nodded.


    "Before you go thanking me for the opportunity or anything I need you to understand that the ONLY reason I am willing to do this is because it''s for the good of the vige, the fact it will also get my sensei off my back about taking students is just a happy coincidence." I said with a wink and he chuckled.


    "I suppose all that''s left is to ask when we start then." he said and now it was my turn to chuckle.


    "Oh we already have." I said with a grin.


    "WHAT!?" he eximed in shock.


    Iughed "For all the good your experience in the Anbu gave you you failed to notice a key detail. I told you what this ce was but you seemed to have failed to figure out what that means. By now your natural chakra cirction has drawn in quite the amount of natural energy, try moving and you''ll find it rather hard." I said with a smirk.


    Kakashi immediately tested that theory by lifting his arm and an rmed look crossed his face when his arm creaked and proved barely responsive.


    "Rx, calm your mind and focus on your chakra. Feel how is flows, how theres something else mixed in it. Focus on pushing that thing out without letting more in." I spoke calmly and the man breathed out and did as I instructed.


    Admittedly I had yed a bit of a trick on the man as the truth of the matter was that all beings absorb natural energy since birth which is why no one can sense it most of the time. It''s a bit like how you can''t really feel the air on your skin until it moves but times like a hundred. Usually the concentration of natural energy around someone is not enough to bother them but this chamber had a density of the stuff so high it had a physical presence to it. Naturally most people would start showing ill effects if they stayed too long, like say now.-


    It was for this exact reason I purposefully made sure Karin or my sensei didn''t stay here long whenever they came for whatever reason. Karin especially as I had noticed that she had been slowly limating to the dense natural energy found in my home that while harmless was higher than normal by a good deal. In a manner of speaking her body was slowly priming itself for sage mode as it became more tolerant of the energy. Not to say she''d just up and achieve it randomly one day but that it was not inurate to say her body was growing a strong affinity to the energy much like how someone who works out adapts to the work out making it easier for them.-


    Her exposure to the natural energy is more or less "exercising" for her body and so she is getting more tolerant to it as time goes on. Honestly speaking if she had another year at this rate I could teach her sage modeughably easily as her body would already be highly tolerant to the natural energy needed. Even more unfair was that thanks to her bloodline she was already an incredible sensor and so sensing natural energy would be easy once it was pointed out to her.-


    Anyways Kakashi was sweating heavily as he tried his hardest to sense the natural energy that had invaded his body and expel it but was failing horribly. The moment the petrification started to mineralize him I mmed my palm into his chest and for a brief instant a green energy was visible as the natural energy shot out of his back.


    He groaned in pain "Was that necessary?" he asked rubbing the no doubt bruised part of his chest.


    "Would you prefer turning into a rock cuz I could always wait till you are on the brink from death next time if you''d like?" I asked with a grin.


    "On second thought I think I prefer the bruise." he said nervously.


    "Good to hear! Now tell me what you''ve learnt after struggling against the natural energy that crept into your body." I said turning serious for the second part.


    "It was like try to fight a poison that I couldn''t sense at all, if it weren''t for the sort of absence of chakra it left in mywork I wouldn''t be able to notice it at all." he said with mild horror at the memory.


    "I''m not surprised to hear that, natural energy without special sensor training is nearly impossible to notice and because of the fact it doesn''t truly damage the body no one would feel it until it was toote or they had a talent for it. This is why sages are as rare as they are, the energy lulls the unprepared into a false sense of security they don''t survive. That was the point of this little lesson of mine, to make sure you understood that until I say otherwise you aren''t to try anything with the energy alone." I said honestly a firmly.


    He nods "I understand, what''s next?" he asked curiously.


    "Now I''m actually going to teach you something, the first thing a sage should know in my opinion. How to sense natural energy. You are familiar with the twin energies that make up chakra yes?" I asked and he nods.


    "Spiritual and physical energy right?" he asked and I nodded.


    "Yes and this is VERY important for sensing natural energy. Natural energy requires that you use your spiritual energy alone to sense and even then it takes serious concentration since you don''t know what you are looking for at first. Imagine it like being blind all your life and suddenly being able to see. At first you wouldn''t be able to identify any colors because you can''t describe a color without having seen colors, it doesn''t work. In this case natural energy as well as the other energies are just different colors and you have to figure out which one you are looking for." I exined seriously.

 Bullying Kakashi(2)

    Bullying Kakashi(2)


    Kakashi frowned "In that case shouldn''t any genjutsu user of decent skill be able to perceive natural energy?" he asked confused.


    I scoffed at the question "Who says they don''t? I told you it''s like seeing color for the first time so while they may be able to "see" the energy they ignore it most of the time because it''s not chakra and thus not worth their time in their minds. You''d be amazed at the things people will ignore due to misinformation." I say honestly.


    He sighs after thinking about it for a moment and realizing I was probably right and that ignorance was a good reason sage mode wasn''t moremon.


    "Of course being able to sense natural energy is only the first step to sage hood, much like with chakra being able to sense that you have it doesn''t mean you can use jutsu. All it means is that you fulfilled the prerequisite condition to qualify to take the next step. Best way I can describe the path to sage hood for most shinobi is learning how to be a shinobi from scratch with a whole new energy and much more risks." I exined seriously.


    "How will I know what is or isn''t natural energy though if you can''t describe it?" he asked understanding me point and wanting to move on.


    "That my friend is where you are in luck. See natural energy is currently the densest type of energy in this chamber and using my control I can make it take shapes to ease your sensing of it." I say with a grin.


    He easily understood what I meant and chuckled. "You really like making people look bad don''t you?" he joked and I merely shrugged.


    He was referring to the absolutely unfair advantages I naturally had over everyone else. I was more or less showing off my awesomeness and he knew it. After this he closed his eyes and attempted to sense natural energy but his attempts were painfully amateur in my vision. Thanks to me being able to literally see all forms of energy in the air I could see his spiritual energy in use and it was frankly pathetic. He clearly wasn''t familiar with utilizing the stuff as it was uneven and barely able to extend outside his body. I sighed but moved the natural energy past and through his spiritual energy in small shapes to try and catch his attention.-


    There were twitches that showed he felt these movements at least a little but it became clear after a few moments that we needed a new approach. I mmed my hand into his chest again to expel the gathered natural energy out of his back and his focus vanished as he coughed a bunch.


    "You rely on that eye of yours to cast genjutsu." I stated rather than asked.


    "I do, why does it matter?" Kakashi asked confused.


    "It matters because it''s crippled your spiritual energy. You are so used to using that eye as a crutch for your spiritual energy that you are frankly terrible at utilizing it without your eye. You can barely project your spiritual energy outside your body much less use it effectively to sense natural energy." I said harshly.


    "That bad huh?" he asked with a wince at my tone.


    "Yes it''s that bad. We can''t proceed like this or it would be a waste of both our times. One week, for the next week I want you to practice genjutsu without that eye until you run out of chakra. Hell if you can get Kurenai to help you even better." I said firmly.


    "And here I thought I never had to do homework again after I graduated." Kakashiined but I just stared him down.


    He left after that and I sighed before writing up a report on the matter and having my cat deliver it to my sensei. I was still confident in getting Kakashi to sage mode in a rtively short period of time but it was definitely going to take longer than I had initially hoped. Without him being able to perceive natural energy clearly we couldn''t move on to learning to control it or at least draw it in in a controlled manner.-


    With this stumbling block in ce I had no choice but to have Kakashi train his spiritual energy properly instead of using that eye for it all the time. Thankfully the man was actually very talented and once he got used to using it without his eye his proficiency with it should rapidly catch up to what it was with it. I assumed a week would be ample time for that especially if he enlisted Kurenai''s help with his training.-


    The woman was literally called the mistress of genjutsu. For a good reason too as without any form of dojutsu she was easily the most skilled user of genjutsu in the entire vige. To the point of even being able to somewhat imitate the mindreading technique of the Yamanaka n through pure yin or spiritual energy usage. My only concern was that Kakashi might identally let it slip about why he needs to train his spiritual energy usage like this if he gets her help. While I am certain Kurenai has a huge advantage in sensing natural energy even without realizing it I very much doubted she had a talent for the stuff.-


    So if she notices Kakashi messing with the stuff and decides to mess with it herself it could lead to death for her very easily. She wasn''t stupid so if the man "suddenly" achieves sage mode after getting her help she''ll likely figure it out quickly. I wasn''t trying to keep sage mode to myself or anything but there was a reason I chose Kakashi out of everyone. He was already infinitely close to S rank and so sage mode was honestly just the cherry on top, the final touch.-


    For any of the other jonin of the vige however it could prove more detrimental than helpful for them to be taught it even if it elevated their power. Sudden spikes of power were all well and good but sage mode wasn''t supposed to be a shortcut to power but more a refinement of it than anything. I more than anyone understood this since I was born in sage mode and hadn''t left it since. I would have needed to be a fool to ignore the differences between me and the regr people of this world that had been caused by my state of being.

 Contemplation

    Contemtion


    Unlike every other sage I knew of I understood that sage mode didn''t give you power but merely improved what you had and ONLY that. Sure it allowed you to use powerful techniques but the fact was that you had to have at least a slight foundation for whatever those techniques were before you could use them. Want to use a fire style sage jutsu? You need to know how to use a normal one first. You want to punch harder? You needed strong muscles first. Sage mode was purely amplification for everyone who wasn''t me.-


    Like always I was the exception rather than the rule, the anomaly. Unlike everyone else sage mode IS my foundation. It came before all else and was what I built my entire power set around. While sage mode was still purely an amplification for me it was amplifying every facet of my growth on a constant basis rather than merely when it was actively used like in most other sages. Everything that a growing child would experience of benefit was amplified and this meant that with training and opportunities on top I became what I am today.-


    This wasn''t purely positive however as I had to constantly battle with my pride to keep me from looking at everyone else as an inferior creature. If I was not a reincarnated soul from Earth but truly a child of this world I shuddered to think of how I''d have turned out assuming I hadn''t been killed by this point. Seeing the world through the worlds perception was both a grand and chilling thing as only thanks to this I understood how insignificant the world considered anyone that wasn''t me. As Katsuyu had said I was the worlds darling child, it''s favorite and that meant it considered me important but that was as far as it cared about humanity.-


    As far as the world was concerned people were merely just another species on it''s surface and no more important than any other and if anything even slightly disliked due to how humanity unbnced the ecosystems it found itself in. Thanks to being able to see the world as the world itself does I had to fight against the arrogant disdain that came from this perception. It was this that I meditated on and forced to bend to my will rather than the other way around.-


    (General POV)


    While Kenzo meditated on the world and his understanding of it others were having a harder time of things. In the vige hidden in the sound that had been founded by Orochimaru to collect unique bloodlines and talented orphans Kabuto was having a very bad time.


    ''Where did you go Lord Orochimaru?'' he thought as he read through yet another set of scouting reports from the shinobi sent to check each of the hidden bases for the missing snake sannin.


    Ever since he heard about the failed attack on Kenzo Mizuyama that his master had orchestrated and the explosion of the hidden base in thend of fire Kabuto had a growing sense that his master was no longer amongst the living. Unfortunately he couldn''t use [impure world reincarnation] or [Edo tensei] as it''s truly named to verify this fact due to the unique immortality jutsu his master uses as well as the curse seals he left behind that contained a fragment of his soul. This corrupted fractured soul meant that he wouldn''t go to the purends upon death which was where [Edo tensei] drew the souls from to bring the dead back to life.-


    This left Kabuto in the awkward position of not being able to confirm Orochimaru''s life or death and thus being stuck suddenly with the duties of leading the operations of the hidden sound vige and research. Not that it really caused him any real problems since he had already been doing this as his lord spent the vast majority of his time dedicated to his research anyways and stuck him with the managerial duties. Still the absence of his lord was sorely felt with each day that passed as things grew more and more tense.-


    Sasuke for example had started to grow impatient as the lord had been failing to provide the training promised to grant the foolish child the power he desired. Clearly the Uchiha hadn''t realized that he was being groomed to serve as a vessel for the lord or if he had realized this arrogantly thought he could resist the process. For now the boy was content to merely train his power to one day exact vengeance on his brother Itachi. Meanwhile far off in thend of rice Naruto and Jiraiya wandered thend training in a migratory fashion but rendering aid where they could for a price.-


    Back in Konoha Kakashi approached Kurenai about getting her aid in training his genjutsu without using his sharingan.


    "I''m surprised that you''d seek out an alternate method of casting genjutsu given the advantage that eye gives you." the woman said curiously.


    "It was made clear to me that this eye has hobbled me more than I originally thought so I''m looking to shore up these shorings." Kakashi said calmly.


    "I suppose that makes sense, know that even if we are friends I won''t be going easy on you." the woman said seriously and Kakashi nodded.


    "I wouldn''t expect anything less." he said determined.


    So it was that Kakashi spent six hours everyday for the next seven days training his yin release without the use of his sharingan. At the end of it he had to admit that it made a massive amount of difference. Even just this short span of a week was enough to see his usage of genjutsu reach a whole new level as his understanding of it took a leap forward. He had also noticed the phenomenon Kenzo had described with the sudden perception of colors surrounding him that he hadn''t noticed till now.-


    (Normal POV)


    "So you can "see" the colors now? Maybe theres hope for this to be quick yet." I said after hearing Kakashi report back to me.


    "Do you mean quick rtive to the normal amount of time it would take or in general?" he asked confused.


    "Yes." was the only answer I chose to to give him.

 Bruised but successful

    Bruised but sessful


    Messing with Kakashi aside I wasn''t actually being deceitful as whether it was rtive to the normal time it took to learn sage mode or in general this training shouldn''t take very long at all. Maybe a month in total if Kakashi doesn''t ck off. Compared to the years it normally would take this was ridiculously fast. In peaceful times like now a month was also quite a short amount of time to grow to such a degree. I also wasn''t being generous with my timeframe either as I truly believed that with his talent and my serious help Kakashi could do it in this amount of time.-


    His eyebrow twitched at my reply but he just sighed before asking "So what is the next step now that I can "see" natural energy?"


    "Now you need to learn how to tell it apart from the rest of the energies in the air. Close you eyes and extend your spiritual perception out and I''ll make this step particrly easy." Imanded and he obeyed.


    I nodded pleased to see that this past week had been exactly what he needed to get a better understanding of his own spiritual energy. I doubt he even realized that he had improved so much in the field as his spiritual energy extended smoothly out from his body in a radius of several feet in all directions. I casually transformed the dense natural energy flowing through his spiritual energy into various shapes and symbols and Kakashi focused his spiritual energy on that part of the energy. When he started trying to exert his own control on the stuff though I didn''t hesitate to shoot a spark of lightning release at him making him yelp from the sudden pain.-


    "I told you to focus on the energy, not try and mess with it haphazardly." I scolded him sternly. "You barely managed to perceive the stuff after I purposefully made it stand out much less reached the level necessary to start controlling it. Try something like that again and I might let you face the consequences without stopping you." I said firmly.


    "I''m sorry. I got ahead of myself, it won''t happen again." he said sincerely.


    "Good, now try again while I increase the difficulty." Imanded and he did.


    Increasing the difficulty in this case was making less obvious disturbances in the energy and having him try and spot them.


    Once I was satisfied with his uracy at that I decreased the disturbances even further forcing him to try even harder. Metaphorically speaking I started out with an elephant and was slowly reducing it down to a flea. The first was naturally easier to see but thest was much much harder. I had learnt the method that Katsuyu and the other two major sage regions used to train their sages from the slug sage herself and found it.... inefficient. My reason for saying so was that they settled for "good enough" natural energy sensing before moving on but that was making the process of learning harder.-


    Even Jiraiya who had years of training and experience with sage mode hadn''t "perfected" it yet and couldn''t sense another sage unless they made it obvious or he actively tried to sense the natural energy around him. I know because otherwise he would have spotted me the moment he met me as my state while not obvious wasn''t very hidden either. Thing was though that in order to get the sort of control needed to have "perfect" sage mode you also needed to be able to passively sense natural energy without really trying but the toads clearly failed to tell him this or didn''t realize this was the case.-


    To put it bluntly Jiraiya''s sage mode was horribly performed because of his faulty training. I refused to make that mistake for Kakashi and so I was forcing his spiritual perception to grow so acute he''ll be able to sense and control natural energy in an instant. It took five days of training for him to grasp natural energy with his spiritual senses with ease at the low low price of being sleep deprived and mentally weary.-


    "Your first step towards sage mode is nowplete, take the next two days to rest up and recover." I said not tired at all unlike the half zombie Kakashi.


    I only needed three hours of sleep to be fully refreshed after all but after five days of barely getting five hours of sleep the silver haired man was dead on his feet tired. Was I being a bit cruel with this training schedule? Yes. Was it worth it? Absolutely! Thanks to this training even while dead tired Kakashi could immediately sense natural energy in a precise manner, just imagine how he''d do while fully rested.-


    The next two days went by quietly after that and then Kakashi showed up at my home yet again and I tested him by having a tiny prick of natural energy buzz by his ear and he swat at it absentmindedly. It took him only a moment to realize that it was me messing with him as the buzz didn''t vanish.-


    "Is that really necessary?" he askedining.


    "Absolutely! The fact it''s also amusing is just an added bonus." I say with a grin.


    "Fine fine, I know better than to argue at this point. What''s todays torture?" he asked half joking half not.


    "The next week will be spent forcibly boosting your bodies tolerance to natural energy. Not going to lie it''s going to suck hard for you." I said honestly.


    "And if we didn''t force the issue?" he asked hoping for a way out.


    "It''d take you about half a year to get to the point you don''t immediately risk turning to stonewhen drawing natural energy into your body. Then another six months to get to a point where I''d allow you to attempt sage mode." I said bluntly.


    "Torture it is then." he said with a sigh.


    "d you understand, now follow me back to my meditation chamber." I say before heading back to the crystal chamber.


    He followed behind me but couldn''t help but sigh in relief once we got there. I gave him a knowing look and he just chuckled embarrassed.


    "After getting used to being surrounded by so much natural energy spending two days in the rest of the vige thatcks the stuff in more than minute quantities is a disconcerting feeling I know. I''ve had my entire life to get used to that feeling, you''ve had barely two days. It''ll pass in time I promise." I say reassuringly.

 Painful adaptation

    Painful adaptation


    "I understand but I have a question. Why not spread sage mode since you clearly can? Surely having many sages would help the vige greatly so why not?" Kakashi asked seriously.


    I sighed and shook my head "You are misunderstanding something. You are looking at sage mode as if it were merely another technique like the [rasengan]. The truth is not so simple. Sage mode is a dangerous crutch if someone without enough power to begin with learns it. It''s something meant to enhance what is already there, not serve as a power onto itself. You alreadye close to S rank and thus have a plethora of things to be enhanced, the rest don''t." I exined seriously.


    "So in the long run it would do more harm than good for the vige." he said with a look of understanding.


    I nod "It would kill or at the very least cripple the potential of those who shouldn''t have learnt it had I not existed. Chunin would stall at Jonin when they may have be S rank and so on, it''s not a future I like very much." I said honestly.


    "I see. Lets move on to training then." he said dropping the subject.


    I hum in agreement "Lay down or you''ll fall over once we start. In addition you need to eat this nutrition pill and bite down on this so you don''t break your teeth from the pain." I said as I took out a rubber gag and specially prepared food pill.


    There was nothing kinky about this gag however but rather super serious as a shinobi''s muscles were just that much stronger than a normal persons and if Kakashi were to clench his teeth as hard as he could because of the pain he''d shatter his teeth if there wasn''t something to stop him from doing so, hence the rubber gag.-


    The silver haired ninja understood this and stuffed the gag in his mouth as heid t on the ground.


    ''Sage art: Natural furnace!'' I thought as I mmed my palms into the floor of the chamber.


    Immediately the crystal of the floor began to creep over Kakashi''s body until the entire thing save his face was covered.


    "Brace yourself!" A say urgently and his visible eye narrows in concentration.


    Seeing this I start forcing his crystal enclosure to be filled with more and more natural energy.


    With nowhere to go as I prevent it''s escape the energy grows denser and denser until it''s forced to press against his body and into it. The rubber gag creaks as he clenches his jaws in agony but I had to give it to him, he didn''t scream. I focus my entire attention on him keeping his body from fossilizing despite the sheer volume of natural energy contained in his body. At first his chakra fights back against this malicious invader but soon the shinobi energy worked to heal the damage being done to his body instead.-


    Old cells were killed by the nature energy and reced by new and slightly more resistant ones in a full body cycle teetering dangerously close to the edge of catastrophic failure. This processsted a total of five entire days nonstop but the pain thankfully decreased as time went on for him until he was feeling only a slight itch all over his body. This was where the food pill came in for him as it kept his body from keeling over in starvation but it was a close affair.-


    I pushed my palms against the crystal encasement and with a flex of my sage chakra caused it to turn into sand that fell to the side of his body. The rampaging natural energy immediately fled from him into the air to disperse as a result. He was out cold the moment the pain and pressure vanished and I carefully examined him with my medical jutsu as I removed the rubber gag that was covered in stress and pressure cracks. Besides severe nutrient loss and weakness in his body from muscr hypotrophy or loss of muscles he was better than fine.-


    His cells were practically humming with vitality as a side effect of his natural energy treatment and once he recovered he''d be ready to attempt sage mode. The only reason he hadn''t subconsciously entered the state during this time to begin with was because I refused to allow the natural energy to fuse with his chakra or it would have ruined the entire purpose of this treatment. I gently picked up his unconscious form and flickered out of the chamber and out my my house while heading straight to the hospital. I moved so fast through the vige that the few shinobi who could perceive me broke out in cold sweats.-


    When I got to the hospital I wasted no time at all appropriating a room for Kakashi and hooking him up to a nutrition solution. The doctors in the hospital went to throw a fit about it until they saw that it was me that did it and immediately turned subservient.


    "Keep the nutrient solutionsing when he runs out and after he wakes up he is to eat high protein and fatty foods only for the next three days." Imanded and the doctors wrote it down seriously.


    Once that was done I flickered away with my sensei''s office being my next destination. I didn''t go straight into her office but reported my visit to the secretary who then told her. I was then quickly called up by her and entered her office properly.


    "You smell like you have been sweating heavily and not bathed in days. What happened?" she asked concerned.


    "I spent thest five days nonstop conditioning Kakashi''s body to natural energy. He is currently in the hospital recovering. I assumed you''d want to be informed of this immediately which is why I am here." I said seriously.


    "The hospital? What exactly did you do to him that would require that?" she asked both concerned and curious.


    I saw no reason to lie to her and told her in detail how I forced Kakashi''s body to forcibly adapt to natural energy.


    "By the sage! You could have killed him!" she yelled angrily.


    I shook my head "I always made sure to keep the damage above that threshold, he was at no risk of death or even crippling." I said calmly.


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 Ready

    Ready


    "What about his cellr depletion? You might have cost him years of his life!" she yelled sternly.


    "Hardly, his cells are bursting with vitality now. If anything he''ll live even longer." I answered calmly.


    She calmed down "So what your telling me is that you are absolutely sure he''ll recover from this?" she asked firmly.


    "He''ll more than recover, he''ll be stronger than ever afterwards." I said seriously.


    "We will see but if anything bad happens to him because of this you will be punished, am I understood?" she said and I nodded.


    I wasn''t bothered by her sternness in this matter as I understood how serious the consequences of this could be if anyone other than me had done it. I had made sure to keep the delicate bnce in Kakashi''s body so he gained all the benefits and only had some rtively minor and most importantly temporary side effects. Sure he was bed ridden and would need at least a week to recover with the care I was going to give him but that was literally it. My only real gripe was that I was going to overshoot the month I had assumed it would take for him to achieve sage mode.-


    Honestly though this was not even that big a deal as this was my first attempt at teaching sage mode so some error was to be expected in guessing the time needed. When I eventually taught Karin she would definitely take less than a month because she can skip the adaptation period and move straight to sensing and manipting natural energy. Even in that regard she had a leg up as she was an extremely powerful sensor already and thus could already utilize her spiritual energy pretty well.-


    The training my sensei gave her about medical techniques had also allowed the redhead to be stronger than ever as she had an over abundance of physical or yang energy. Due to this unfortunately she had also gotten harder to pry off without hurting her when she got home and clingy. More often than not I was forced to to sit unproductively as she grinned like a moron while hugging me. Time passed and as I predicted Kakashi was back to normal after about a week of treatment though he needed some training to fully restore his muscture.-


    "I can''t remember thest time I felt so good. I''m practically bursting with energy!" the silver haired man said as he clenched his fist over and over again.


    "That''s to be expected given the vitality your cells currently have. If you are willing to continue you are ready for the next step of sage training as well." I said calmly.


    "Really? Not that I''m doubting you or anything but this seems almost too easy?" he said confused.


    "Well if I''m being honest I have been sort of forcing you to go through what a normal sage does over months to years in merely weeks. This isn''t to say my method is easier so much as massively more dangerous in exchange for taking a short amount of time." I exined calmly.


    "I see. You did say that the adaptation alone should have taken me almost a year normally yet if we consider my recovery it''s only been two weeks. At the same time Lady Tsunade has told me of the many ways it could have gone wrong." he said with an enlightened look.


    "Indeed, danger for speed is the trade off. Of course that only applies to anyone but me but I''m the exception rather than the rule." I said simply.


    "I''ve alreadye this far so I may as well go the rest of the way. What''s the next step?" he asked with a shrug.


    "The next step is for you to start drawing in natural energy while here in the vige and far away from my home." I said honestly.


    He frowned in confusion "Wouldn''t it be easier in your home where the natural energy is densest?" he asked.


    "Easier to draw in yes. The best route? No! The very density of the natural energy there is the exact issue here. Natural energy flows you see and when you draw it in the free floating stuff naturally follows what you are pulling in an out of control fashion. As a result trying this step in a ce like my home is asking to get turned to stone as ALL that energy tries to follow the flow you create." I exin seriously.-


    He shudders at the mental image that paints and nods "So it''s best to start out in an area of low natural energy like the vige for this step, got it." he said seriously.


    "Luckily for you you already have a small amount of experience manipting natural energy with your spiritual energy due to your messing about during sensing training. You merely need to attempt that again but refine it further through experience." I said with a chuckle.


    He stared at me speechlessly "You mean I could have been doing that this whole time?" he asked and I nodded with a grin. "Let me guess, it was to temper my expectations and patience?" he asked deadpan.


    "So d you understand!" I said with augh.


    It only took three days for Kakashi to get the hang of manipting enough natural energy to achieve sage mode and it was finally time for him to take that final step, merging natural energy into his chakra to make sage chakra.-


    "Are you sure there isn''t some sort of ratio to this I need to try and reach?" he asked for the third time.


    "As I said thest two times the exact ratio is slightly different for each individual because each individual is different and unique. The rough ratio is thirty percent natural energy seventy chakra but the exact ratio will be something only you can figure out. Now stop stalling and do the thing already!" I snapped and he raised his hands catingly.


    He sat cross legged on top of the Hokage monument as the natural energy up here was neithercking nor ample but in the middle. I watched as he began to carefully draw in natural energy and force it against his chakra to attempt the fusion making me wince at how rough it was. Obviously I was heavily biased as a natural sage so I kept my criticism to my self for now. Regardless of all else this was a good sign that he was on the right track.

 A new sage

    A new sage


    Thanks to the forceful adaptation to natural energy he had received Kakashi was able to resist the fossilization that started to ur as the present natural energy was drawn into his body. Instead he focused on trying to fuse the energy with his chakra and it was rough going. Not that I expected him to aplish it on his first attempt to begin with. In a manner of speaking a normal shinobi entering sage mode required a lot of effort as they were effectively doing four things simultaneously.-


    The first was drawing in natural energy without getting flooded with the stuff. The second was keeping the energy they drew in from rampaging and turning them to stone or in the case of the other sage regions an animal. The third was trying to control the natural energy into fusing with their chakra. The final was keeping their mind focused on these tasks as a moments distraction could mean failure or worse. For me all of this happened on it''s own as a matter of course so I didn''t need to pay it any attention at all unless I went for saint mode.-


    When I deemed him too close to turning into stone I pped Kakashi on the chest forcing the natural energy out of him and resetting his state so he could keep trying without risk. He only took a moment to center his mind again after the sudden pain of my action thanks to having experienced it plenty since I started his training. It took thirty resets for him to briefly create a spark of sage chakra that winked out as fast as it came.-


    "That''s enough for today. Go home, eat well and rest. We''ll meet up here at dawn tomorrow." I said calmly and he breathed out tiredly and nodded.


    This process was heavily taxing for the mind and not a little stressing for the body as well so after so long maintaining it he needed rest. I could have allowed him to keep trying if we were in a hurry at the cost of the bacsh being much greater after he finally rxed but we weren''t in a hurry so this was the ideal pace. The next morning when the sun had just started to light up the world I was waiting on top of the Hokage monument when he arrived perfectly on time.-


    I didn''t n to point out how out of character for him this was as he was ALWAYS fashionablete. I could tell that he was serious about this training and I had no reason to be dissatisfied so I left it alone. While the world was awakening we restarted his training and it was clear that the rest was exactly what he needed as the process was much smoother this time though it took him another three resets to spark up sage chakra again. It only took another five resets after that for him to find the perfect ratio of energies for him and start truly creating more and more sage chakra.-


    Red markings began to appear around his eyes while his hair spiked up and he began to take on doglike properties.


    "That''s far enough. Open your eyes and test your changes, you are currently in sage mode." I said with a smile and he did as I said.


    "Incredible! I can smell everything for miles and my hearing is so much more sensitive now! Do you feel like this all the time!?" he asked in amazement.


    "Not precisely like what you are feeling as it''s clear that your sage mode has taken after your dog summoning beasts whereas mine could be considered as truly neutral and thus all inclusive. Still congrattions are in order for officially stepping into the rank of sage." I said with a smile.


    "Thank you, truly. I know that without your help I would have never achieved this." he said with a sincere bow.


    "Bah! Your trainings not over yet you know?" I said with a chuckle while waving off his thanks.


    "What more is there?" he asked confused.


    "Your sage mode is imperfect and primitive at the moment and you have no idea how to use sage arts. You''ll need my help to learn these things still. Perfect sage mode you can probably learn on your own with enough time to practice but it''ll be faster if I help. As for sage arts you will definitely need my help with that." I said honestly.


    "No more bruises though?" he asked suspiciously and I chuckled but nodded.


    "It''s a matter of refinement to perfect your sage mode and sage arts are a matter of understanding how much energy to add to your jutsu in your new state as well as taking advantage of the improvements your body gets. For the sage regions this is the kata''s and specialty techniques of the sage modes they give. Jiraiya for example learnt toad oil techniques and toad kata fighting style." I exined calmly.


    "I see but what would I learn if my sage mode is rted to my ninken?" he asked confused.


    "Well if I had to guess your sage mode increases the strength of your speed, hearing and sense of smell like that of a ninken and perhaps even further. So your best bet would be to learn how to utilize these traits to the best of your ability, the Inuzuka taijutsu and techniques are probably the perfect fit for you in this case. In fact they fit so well that I can''t help but wonder if the n had a sage at one point with a sage mode like yours, could be a coincidence though." I said with a shrug.


    "Ah, well I guess that makes things easy for me as my mother was from that n so I already know some of their techniques." he said with a amused look as his sage mode faded.


    I wasn''t surprised that it hadn''tsted very long as I had stopped him from gathering too much sage chakra lest he permanently take on traits of it''s imperfect form like how Jiraiya had arge wart on his face from a simr past problem. The markings faded from Kakashi''s face and his ninken features went with them returning him to normal.

 S rank sensation

    S rank sensation


    My sensei wasted no time at all announcing Kakashi''s elevation to S rank to the vige which created a wave of celebrations. Each and every S rank ninja a vige had meant that the vige was even stronger than before. This was cause for celebration for that vige andmentation for the others as it meant that vige was now even tougher to defeat. My sensei didn''t say exactly how Kakashi became S rank but nobody doubted her as the man was already well known for being right at the precipice of the rank and so it wasn''t odd that he finally crossed it.-


    I took no praise for raising him up to there by teaching him sage mode but that was the deal between me and my sensei. I wanted my free time to remain as it was so I helped make the vige more stable by teaching Kakashi and she left me alone about training new graduates. Admittedly it was also quite amusing to watch the silver hair shinobi awkwardly deal with the eager vigers who were in a small bit of frenzy over his new status.-


    Those who were aware that Kakashi had been going to my house a lot before this announcement had figured out that I was involved with his "sudden" elevation and had tried sucking up to me to get simr help but I ignored them. Kakashi was being held back by his sharingan that left him with way less chakra to use than he actually had but for the rest they had no such handicap stopping them from reaching S rank. My training of Kakashi was mostly able to push him over the limit of S rank simply because it increased how much he could do without spending more chakra.-


    If he could have used his full chakra pool he wouldn''t have even needed my help as he would have already been considered S rank. Still I couldn''t say that I didn''t understand why these people were hoping to get my help to reach S rank. That position was a thing of great power and prestige so naturally everyone wanted it but how many ever truly achieved it? Six? Seven? Eight in two generations? The number was DRASTICALLY lower than the number that reached the rank below that Elite Jonin. There could be a dozen Elite Jonin in a generation but only one makes it to S rank.-


    Talent was a factor sure but the biggest hurdle was putting the work in to be considered truly exceptional. Reaching Elite Jonin took hard work but S rank took near supernatural work ethic to achieve for most. The only real exceptions to this that I knew of was my sensei, me and the Jinchuriki. In our cases we were just different than everyone else in how hard we had to work to reach that height. For my sensei it was because of her bloodline to a massive degree as she had both Senju and Uzumaki blood and that meant her body without training was insanepared to literally anyone who didn''t have a bloodline or were me.-


    Add a decent work ethic and teacher to that and a passion for medical jutsu and you get my sensei. For the Jinchuriki they simply had to learn how to tap into the tailed beasts within them to reach S rank which had various degrees of difficulty based on how well the beast and person get along. Add on that they all had stupidly high amounts of chakra and trained as well and that exins that.-


    As for me well that should be obvious at this point as thanks to being in sage mode since birth my talent was literally unmatched, the pinnacle possible. Add on the training I did and Orochimaru''s interference and that was enough said. What all of these people wanted was some sort of shortcut they could take to avoid the work needed to reach S rank and after seeing Kakashi achieve it in such a short time of interacting with me near daily they thought I had this shortcut.-


    They were both right and wrong as sage mode was certainly a great boost to ones strength but the trick was that they had to have the strength to boost to begin with. While I had no doubt that I could raise pretty much anyone to S rank if I personally oversaw their training for a time I saw no reason why I should waste my time on such people. By far the worst of these people had to be the Hyuga ns elder that had the audacity to try and ckmail me with the fact I was hiding my strength from the vige.-


    They would need to be blind to miss it with their byakugans and for some reason thought I was avoiding revealing my strength to the vige. I couldn''t help but wonder if they were senile and couldn''t understand that I wasn''t hiding anything, I just didn''t have a reason to use it. Ipared myself to the likes of the first Hokage and Madara Uchiha and while I fell short in terms of sheer skill I was fairly certain that I could match them in power, especially if I used saint mode. My sensei was perhaps the only person in the vige who knew this and for good reason.-


    My mere existence would be more than enough for all the other viges to put aside their strife and unite to kill me. No one wanted to see another Madara or Hashirama show up and all but forcibly suppress the other viges. Anyways I t out told the old bastard where he could shove his ckmail before telling my sensei so she could decide what to do with them. It was almost funny how the old coot tried to spread the news of my strength. But rather than get me questioned by the vige my sensei exposed that she was already aware and that the old coot was trying to stir up trouble and then sat back to watch the vige tear the reputation of the bastard apart.-


    The best part was that it effected the entire Hyuga n as well and the main branch of the n was forced to issue a formal statement condemning the elders actions and making it clear it wasn''t the stance of the rest of the n. The old bastard ended up "passing in his sleep" a weekter which was suspicious as hell but got the heat off the n at the very least.


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 The water problem

    The water problem


    Karin looked bothered by this but couldn''t deny it. I quickly get ready and left my house after that for my sensei''s office. It came as little surprise that she was waiting for me though what dide as a surprise was who else was in the office, Terumi Momo.


    "Theres been a rather annoying snag in our support of the bloodline faction as the normal middleman was killed by the Mizukage''s faction and the final battle for the vige is fast approaching. You were chosen by name to lend aid to the faction as the new middleman and participate in the ying of the Mizukage Yagura in a supportive role. All undercover of course." My sensei said seriously without wasting any time.


    "What exactly are the parameters for this mission?" I asked seriously.


    It was from the sound of it a very important mission and one I was uniquely suited for as both one of the most skilled medical shinobi alive as well as in terms of power and jutsus. I could easily blend into the faceless crowds or straight up turn invisible if I wanted.-


    "The first part of your mission is to pose as an escort to a merchant headed to thend of water with Terumi Momo here acting as the merchant. Once you arrive at the bloodline resistance headquarters you aren''t to engage inbat unless absolutely necessary and are to serve as both a messager and medic while you are there while disguised. The skirmishes until now have not required our aid but this final battle is likely to be particrly bloody and they will need as skilled a medic as possible to prevent needless casualties." My sensei said seriously.


    "I understand." I say calmly.


    The mission was quite straightforward though it was obvious there was also a ploy here from the bloodline resistance. Probably to poach me or secure my bloodline through seduction. Ao had clearly not forgotten me and was in for a rude awakening when this ploy failed. My answer to the ploy was quite simple really, a mitosis clone. It was just as good as if I went in person without actually having to go myself, the catch was that the clone was sterile and could be dispelled in an instant. I even gathered a piece of intel by sending my clone, they weren''t able to tell the difference between it and the real me.-


    Obviously I knew that doing so was very hard without the byakugan and some testing but the key detail here was that there was a way to do it. My sensei had insisted on figuring a way out in the off chance someone learnt the technique and turned traitor. The fact that they didn''t know how to do it told me that their spies didn''t have fingers past a certain point. My clone techniques existence was a semipublic thing since the third Hokage had tried really hard to find others who could learn it from me but they all failed my tests, the counter technique for it however was not public.-


    The actual technique to counter the technique was both simple and unique, genjutsu attack. See mitosis clones unlike shadow clones had a constant mental connection to the main body as the mind was split between the bodies. This meant that you could attack this connection if you had the right technique. It was kind of like sending a virus through a piece of spam mail. This special genjutsu only affected the main body so the clone was none the wiser until it hits the main body and exposes itself.-


    The sudden shock would cause the clone to drop limp as the connection was cut as the genjutsu took over the full mind of the main body. The genjutsu was harmless otherwise as it only forced the victim to experience the world through their current bodies senses. In other words if you weren''t using a clone you had nothing to fear as the genjutsu was redundant. I of course reported this intel to my sensei. Honestly speaking it didn''t even matter if the resistance discovered I sent a clone as the clone was pretty much a perfect copy of me and could do almost everything I could other than make more of itself.-


    As a medical support ninja I wasn''t supposed to seebat at all so a mitosis clone wouldn''t be any different from me personally being present. A fact I made clear when Ao with his stolen byakugan outed my clones existence.


    "Where is Konoha''s sincerity!? You sent a mere clone of all things!" he said angrily.


    I unleashed my clones chakra and let it press everyone in the area to the ground as the air howled and the ground cracked. "This "mere" clone could ughter everyone here like they were helpless babies. I can fulfil my duties just fine like this." I said coldly before retracting my chakra.


    Any resistance to my clone being there died at that moment and in fact they tried to convince me to send the clone into the battles but I refused as my mission didn''t involvebat. Besides I had made it clear that it wouldn''t be good for them if I did battle as it would get out that they sought out Konoha''s help to fight their battles which was NOT a good thing for a hidden vige.-


    They quickly came to sing my praises anyways when I went to work treating their wounded and even managed to increase their expected troop size by mending crippling injuries that their own medical ninjas couldn''t fix. -


    "How did you do that? What about this?"


    Terumi Momo had also be an annoyingly active part of my clones day as she hung around watching me work on patients. Her genuine curiosity about the medical techniques I used and what they did made it hard for me to get rid of her. Obviously I couldn''t just tell her to get lost as this was both not Konoha and she wasn''t causing any issues besides trying to improve her own medical knowledge since she was also a medical ninja if only at the lowest level since she had average talent in the field. It also didn''t help that the techniques the iryonin here were using was outdated as all hell.


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 The water problem(2)

    The water problem(2)


    Clearly she took this as an opportunity to learn from someone who was supposedly at the same level as Tsunade Senju and I couldn''t exactly say that wasn''t true to a degree. If there was one trait both I and my sensei had it was that we couldn''t stand watching someone fumble around with medical treatment and would move to correct the offending party the moment we saw it.-


    "No, you don''t stitch up a wound like that as it''ll make the scar protrude! Like this."


    "This saline is too salty for normal use, set it to the side and make a new batch with less salt!"


    "What are you doing!? This poison reacts to alcohol so you can''t use it to disinfect the wound, aren''t you paying attention!?"


    These were just a few times I had corrected the other medical shinobi in the triage unit. While there had been some grumbling because of them thinking I wasn''t that skilled due to my age after seeing my skills in person none dared to question my judgement on the matter. I wasn''t technically teaching during this time but only a fool would pass up the opportunity to advance their skills by seeing the correct way to do things.-


    "It seems requesting you in particr has proven to be an even wiser decision than expected! The iryonin from the Mist haven''t been this skilled in years. Since the start of the "blood mist" policies caused our wounded to be killed rather than healed if they failed a mission I''d say." Terumi Mei said after approaching me when I was on break.


    She had dark red hair that was long and well maintained while she had an attractive figure though she remained single due to her dominant personality.


    "If you think this is skilled than you are sorely mistaken. Most of these practices are highly outdated or in wrong. Any general practitioner from Konoha would seem a master byparison to these iryonin of yours. At most I''ve simply started updating them on the correct way of things before their mistakes cost more damage than necessary." I said brutally honestly.


    "Nobody with want to marry you if you remain so abrasive you know?" the woman points out chidingly.


    "So says the single woman to the guy with a steady rtionship." I send back and she scowls before snorting and leaving.


    Perhaps I was a bit prickly after dealing with the low quality iryonin for thest week and had been a bit harsher than necessary but everyone had their ws. Mine was simply more aggravated by the near constant ipetence I had to deal with for the past week and had worn my patience thin. Still I had to admit that after this week the medical staff of the resistance was leagues better than they were when I first got here. It certainly didn''t help that my mind hadn''t gotten a chance to really rest since I got here as more and more wounded came from the increasing amount of skirmishes as the final battle got nearer and nearer.-


    The least seriously wounded were all but ignored from these battles as the triage unit was seriously understaffed and I had been using shadow clones to fill the void which took a toll on my mind with each one that dispelled while I was unable to truly rest. My main body was able to sleep just fine but the part of my mind controlling this clone was not and even I was starting to feel off as a result.-


    Don''t get me wrong I could go well into two weeks without sleep if I had to but I REALLY didn''t like to as it left me irritable and grouchy. That was when I wasn''t stressed out with a constant flow of serious and intense work on top so just a week without rest was enough to get me to that point. One thing I could admit though was that otherwise the bloodline resistance had treated me very well as I had fresh food each day and the minor inconveniences of mine such asundry and cleaning up were taken care of.-


    To be fair I could have taken the time to sleep but I was kinda concerned that the ipetency of the Iryonin here would cause damage if I did. There was after all no telling when or even if someone important to the resistance might get injured seriously and I didn''t want to be unavable when it happened. Physical exhaustion may not really be a thing for me but mental exhaustion was a very real problem. Three days after this point I was all but forced to get some sleep after I snapped at Karin with my main body and made her cry.-


    It was at that point that I realized enough was enough as I felt horrible since she didn''t deserve that. I apologized profusely for the outburst and spoilt her rotten with all her favorite things once I got some sleep. Even still my sensei chewed me out for it as it was one of her rules that an exhausted iryonin could do more damage than an ipetent one and that self care was important on the battlefield. Thankfully nothing happened during my rest that the iryonin in the triage unit couldn''t handle.-


    I had also earned the nickname "The endless doctor" for the sheer fact I went so long without sleeping and other than being a bit grumpier than normal made no mistakes at all with my treatments. It was at the end of the second week that the skirmishes reached a tipping point as a particrly nasty fight broke out and nearly thirty Jonin level shinobi with serious injuries were brought in. Many more were dead on the battle field and of the thirty brought in five more died merely moments after arriving as there was no saving them.-


    "The final battle has arrived. The Mizukage has put together an army with himself at the helm to strike us while we are still reeling from the blow he just dealt us. This is it, the best chance we have to end this once and for all." Mei said from the head of the war council that I was summoned to.


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