We could obfuscate by getting Reo a ton of different yet plausible training-enhancing techniques as well as inventing "regimes" for the same purpose.
We ostensibly have access to Toad, Dog, and Spider (and maybe Pangolin?) clan techniques as well as whatever we claim Jiraiya had secretly cooking for his heirs. As long as we have an explosion of novel techniques flooding into our clan members it will be nearly impossible for outsiders to definitively pin point what exactly causes our clan member's extreme growth.
Hell, given our track record of wanting to collect summoning scrolls like pokemon badges the most reasonable theory behind our growth would be that we figured out a way to stack various 7th path clan's training techniques together to make a training regime that is far more than the sum of its parts.
Sure. The main issue is actually getting SC, though.
It's a problem we can solve when we're sufficiently powerful that when Asuma gets mad at us for teaching every member of our clan including Honoka SC his only real recourse is to politely ask us not to do it again, at which point we give him a reassuring but ambiguous thumbs-up and comment on how he must be busy and we won't take any more of his time.
Sure. The main issue is actually getting SC, though.
It's a problem we can solve when we're sufficiently powerful that when Asuma gets mad at us for teaching every member of our clan including Honoka SC his only real recourse is to politely ask us not to do it again, at which point we give him a reassuring but ambiguous thumbs-up and comment on how he must be busy and we won't take any more of his time.
I have a half-written omake in which Kei, Snowflake, and Shikamaru explain why the Hokage needs to teach Honoka Shadow Clone at the earliest available opportunity.
The reason they suggest as cover is that too many Goketsu have become wounded or otherwise removed from the mission-capable list due to fighting over who gets to train with Honoka that day.
"The Gōketsu school is an excellent idea," Asuma said, ignoring Hazō's expression. "My tentative plan is to have the Hagoromo supply teachers to work alongside your people. Mostly civilians, although possibly ninja guest lecturers where that makes sense. Additionally, the Hagoromo and the Gōketsu will supply ninja instructors to teach regular joint classes for KEI ninja. Ruka didn't notify you that Akane was overdue, but she also didn't notify the KEI coordinators or the parents of three young genin that their people were overdue. The way I see it, your little clan war spilled out and affected other people, so both of you can help make that right while also developing some closer ties."
Asuma paused, studying Hazō. A smile crept across his face. "And, judging by the completely appalled look on your face, my cunning plan will in fact motivate you to come up with a more effective idea."
He spread his hands in invitation. "As I said, that's my tentative plan. If you have suggestions on a better way to heal the breach between the Gōketsu and the Hagoromo, I'm willing to use those instead. Do you?"
"I brought cookies if you want one. Do you?" Akane asked, two months ago at a training field, when she was so very alive and her smile glowed like the sun.
Hazō struggled for a response, but his brain was awash in fog. He'd been fine thirty seconds ago, but the memory triggered by Asuma's words had suddenly cracked him open and poured in pain. He swallowed carefully to make sure his voice wouldn't break along with his heart.
"I don't have any ideas off the top of my head, sir," he said. "Could I get back to you tomorrow?"
Asuma watched him closely and then nodded with a soft smile. "Of course," he said gently. "Or the next day, or whenever. There's no rush and I'll gladly take input throughout the entire process. For now, take the day."
"Thank you, sir," Hazō said, standing up and bowing slightly. He started to turn for the door and then paused. "Sir," he said, "I wanted to ask you about the security status of the Earthshaping jutsu..."
o-o-o-o
"Hello, Cannai." Hazō's voice was like his footsteps: leaden.
The enormous dog cocked his head, ears raising up. A moment later they dropped and he lay down. "How may I help you, Hazō?"
Hazō slumped to the ground, sitting crosslegged and staring in fascination as his hands plucked a blade of grass. It was truly riveting, absolutely worthy of detailed study, and by 'it' he meant anything that wasn't Cannai's eyes.
"Akane's dead," he said, noting the nick in the fingernail of his left-hand pinky.
"Canvass told me," Cannai said, his voice gentle. "I'm sorry. I regret that I was never fortunate enough to meet her."
"Mm."
Cannai waited for long seconds. "Would you like to tell me about her?"
"Not really," Hazō confessed. Hands were super interesting. Look, he had a freckle on the left one. "But I probably should. Mari thinks I should."
Cannai waited while Hazō said nothing.
"I'm glad you have been talking to Mari, or anyone," Cannai said after three solid minutes of silence. "That shows wisdom."
"Yeah..." Hazō said. "I don't think I'm showing a lot of wisdom. I'm lashing out at people. My friends, my family, even the Hokage. He's something like my Alpha. What would you do if one of your dogs lashed out at you when you didn't deserve it?"
"I would ask them why," Cannai said. "And then I would listen to their pain and do what I could to help them with it. Hazō, you know that I am vastly older than you, yes?"
Hazō frowned slightly in surprise and glanced up to find Cannai's big eyes studying him. "Sure?"
"As you know, all old people are wise and deserving of respect and obedience, so—"
Hazō snorted a brief laugh at Cannai's so-dry tone. The Alpha's tongue lolled out for just a moment.
"Well, perhaps not all old people," the enormous dog admitted. "Still, here is a bit of wisdom for you: shared pain is lessened, shared joy is multiplied. Keep Akane in your heart and share everything that her memory brings up. Tell your family of your pain, and of the joy that is locked into your memories of her. It will help them with their pain as much as it will help you with yours."
Hazō considered that. "That actually does sound kinda wise. Who said it?"
"According to legend, it was first spoken by a philosopher from the Arachnid Clan, a spider named Robinsonu. Whether that is true or not, I cannot say."
"I doubt it. The Arachnids all have names that start with 'Kumo', not 'Robi'."
"Ah. Well, then most likely the stories are a lie. A pity; they are delightful stories." His eyes went distant for a moment as he drifted into his own past. "Supposedly, Robinsonu was a far-traveler, which presumably is how the Dogs came to know of his tales. When he was not traveling, he operated a tavern." He hesitated. "No, not a tavern, a 'saloon'. Odd word. Apparently it is like your 'restaurants' but it only serves that foul liquid that you silly humans like to poison yourselves with?"
Hazō rolled his eyes and chuckled slightly. The laughter was a thin layer floating atop the pain, but the laughter was there. "It's called alcohol and I know you know what it is."
"Do I? Hm, I suppose. I recall Kakashi indulging himself in it on multiple occasions." He shuddered overdramatically and pawed at his nose. "Horrible stuff. No idea how you put up with it."
"It's an acquired taste," Hazō admitted.
Cannai shook his head. "Humans baffle me. How exactly does that thought process work?" He made his dopey face: head tipped, ears high, eyes crossed, tongue barely showing.
"Durr, I am a human and this stuff tastes disgusting," he said in a silly voice.
He went back to his normal serious expression. "Indeed," he said, nodding somberly. "Perhaps you should stop drinking it, friend human?"
Once more the dopey face. "Durr, no! I must keep drinking this disgusting stuff because if I drink enough of it then I will start to like it and I can drink lots more of it!"
Serious face. "But...if you don't like it then why would you want to like it?"
Dopey face. "Because I'm a human and humans are silly, durr!"
Hazō sighed loudly, rolling his eyes.
Serious face. "Isn't it poisonous to you?"
Dopey face. "Durr hurr, yup! It makes me stupid and uncoordinated and sometimes it makes me angry and I start fights for no reason! Or sometimes it makes me overly affectionate and I grab people and give them noogies and tell them I love them even though I don't and it embarrasses me later!"
Hazō cleared his throat, giving Cannai an arch look.
Serious face. "Are those the sort of experiences you want to have?"
Dopey face. "Durr, nope! They're embarrassing and they get me in trouble and make people laugh at me, durr!"
"Are you quite done?" Hazō said, chuckling slightly.
Cannai made his serious face again and met Hazō's eyes. "No heckling, if you please. I have twenty-nine minutes of this routine, polished over the course of hundreds of years of human summoners. Now hush."
Serious face. "Are those the sort of experiences you want to have?"
Dopey face. "Durr, nope! They're embarrassing and they get me in trouble and make people laugh at me, durr!"
Serious face. "Well, then why drink a poison that will cause you to have those experiences?"
Dopey face. "Durr—"
"You're not as funny as you think you are," Hazō said, amusement starting to be tinged with annoyance.
"Harumph. I'll have you know that this routine kills. It even won third place in the All-West Art Festival twenty years ago." He frowned. "Twenty-two years? Hm. Not important."
Hazō snorted. "Yes, well, apparently dogs have a childish sense of humor."
"What's that you say? Dogs are innocent, truthful, and open with their feelings? Why thank you, Hazō. You are most kind."
Hazō rolled his eyes. "Fine, whatever. On a different topic: thank you for recommending Canvass as a tracker. She was amazing. The Inuzuka were piiiissed about how badly she showed them up."
"I am delighted to hear that," Cannai said, eyes twinkling. He paused. "The part about Canvass being amazing, obviously. Being the mature person that I am, I take no pleasure in the irritation of the Inuzuka Clan upon recognizing their inferiority to the Dog Clan."
When he wanted to be, Cannai was a terrible liar.
Hazō had forgotten his fingers, and he now noticed that, left unattended, they had been combing through the dirt in front of himself. There was dirt under his nails and a smudge on the back of his hand.
"Cannai," he said slowly. "There's a thing that I'd like to get your opinion on."
Cannai cocked his head in interest. "Yes?"
"I've mentioned the Earthshaping technique, right? It lets me saturate my chakra into a wide area and manipulate rock, dirt, stone, that kind of thing."
"Indeed."
"It's a strange technique. It's one of very few techniques with no combat application, and the only one I'm aware of that has no practical purpose. It can be used for building houses or bridges or whatever, but there are better choices for that. It seems like it was mostly intended for sculpture."
"Admirable," Cannai said. "Humans should place more of their efforts into art and beauty. I worry for you sometimes, with your focus on killing. It is not good for your souls."
"No argument. Anyway, the technique is unlike anything I've ever used before. As I come to understand it better it lets me do more. It's almost like it wants to do more, and it keeps urging me on. At first all I could do was shape what was already there. Then I learned how to meld things together into a unified whole with no breaks. I learned how to make things denser"—he curled his hand loosely, then clenched it into a fist—"or less dense." He expanded the fist explosively back into an open palm. "My ability to understand the material has been improving, and just recently it got precise enough that I can sort the different kinds of stuff in an area, keep one kind and shove everything else aside. It's great for pulling metals out of rock, for example."
"Hm," Cannai said, intrigued. "It sounds something like the landsense. When you say that it 'wants' to do more, is it actually a conscious desire?"
Hazō hesitated. "I...don't think so? Maybe? It's like when you see a storm lashing at a house, the wind catching in every crevice and the rain digging into every gap. Sometimes it's just a storm but sometimes it feels like it actively wants to destroy. Any idea what that means?"
"I am afraid not. I've never heard of a human chakra manipulation that wants anything. How precise is the sense? Can it detect gaps in the material? You mentioned that it was purely for Earth element, not for wood or other living things. Could you identify where tree roots are by identifying the void in the soil?"
Hazō nodded. "Yes. And I could move the soil around the roots, bringing in rich compost from the surface and packing it close to help the tree grow."
"This sounds lovely. I am pleased to hear of such a technique. Why do you mention it?"
"I think it might allow me to make three-dimensional seals," Hazō said, letting the words hang in the air.
"And the Great Seal is a three-dimensional seal," Cannai said, immediately getting the point. "Interesting. Would it allow you to repair the Great Seal?"
Hazō shrugged helplessly. "No idea. The mere idea of three-dimensional sealing is ludicrous, so I have no idea what it might allow. Still, it's a possibility. Worst case, and I do mean worst case, I might be able to create a new Great Seal and banish the Dragons. The idea is ridiculous—the thing is huge and made of something I don't recognize and..." He shook his head. "It's ludicrous, but if I was able to produce three-dimensional seals then it's at least conceivable. I'm confident that no paper seal would do the job."
"You wish to develop your Earthshaping to the point where you can do this," Cannai said. "Am I safe in assuming that you mention this to me because you would like help, or advice?"
Hazō's lips twitched in a faint smile. It was a smile because of Cannai's interest and willingness to help. It was faint because the amusement from earlier was fading and the gray lassitude was returning, but he chose to continue with what he was doing.
"I saw Enma bond part of Archaeopteryx," he said. "He didn't tell me a lot about it, but I gathered that it involved putting a chunk of his soul into the land. You are the Alpha of Dog, so presumably your soul is infused into the land here. I'm concerned that if I used Earthshaping in Dog Territory then it would harm you."
Cannai's tongue lolled out. "I believe the phrase that human children use is 'I double-dog dare you with pudding on top.'"
"I...don't think that's a thing."
Cannai huffed in amusement. "Not in Mist, perhaps. Please, go ahead. Try your technique."
"So your soul is not part of the land here?"
Cannai flicked his tail dismissively. "Oh no. I am not letting you distract me. Go on, do this technique of yours that you are concerned will wrest my soul from the land, or whatever."
"You mentioned something called landsense," Hazō said. "This isn't likely to be...I don't know, blinding, or smell bad, or something like that."
The tail whipped impatiently. "Go on, cast it. I triple-dog dare you." He looked up, rummaging through his memories. "Ah, yes. 'Do it or admit you're chicken.'"
"What?" Hazō said. "That's not...it doesn't...I'm obviously not a chicken! I don't have feathers, or steel claws, or a beak."
"Bock, bock, bocaw!" He tipped his head in curiosity. "Did I say it right? Is it making you feel insulted and demeaned? It's supposed to make you feel insulted and demeaned."
Hazō shook his head in confusion. "Fine, whatever. Let me put some stuff out first." He pulled out his storage seals and laid out the samples.
Every corner of Leaf had been scoured to aid with this experiment. Blacksmiths had yielded up bits of their refined iron (cast, wrought, and forged), iron ore in various forms, and slag from their furnaces. Whitesmiths had provided copper, tin, lead, and a variety of other metals. Sculptors had happily granted chunks of marble too small to be useful and broken sculpture pieces. A particular potter had, with much bemusement, handed over a fist-sized blob of wet clay and a sack full of broken pieces from a misfired jug.
Hazō laid out all the samples, along with small labels saying what each one was. Then, after permission from Cannai, he cast his most-used technique, the one that had saved his life more than any other: Multiple Earth Wall.
The familiar granite block rose up from the ground with comforting speed. Next, Hazō shifted into a more comfortable position, made the handseals for the Earthshaping technique, and began to push his chakra out, both into the wall and into the ground.
For a moment the soil felt alien and unlike that of the Human Path's fundament. It refused his touch, blocking him off without effort...and then it parted before him, allowing his chakra entrance as easily (more easily?) than the soil of the Gōketsu compound ever had.
"Fascinating," Cannai said, head cocked as he focused inward. "It's a very confined effect, and very [bark]. I'm not sure I would notice it if I wasn't nearby. Even nearby, I would likely miss it I weren't paying attention."
"What was that word?" Hazō asked. "'And very something.' It didn't translate."
"[bark]? It means..." He hesitated. "Hm. I'm not sure how to explain it. It's a sensory word, but not a sense that you have. It's something like attempting to explain color to a blind person, I fear."
"Bleh," Hazō said, before turning back to the technique he had been maintaining. Over the next few minutes he finished spreading his chakra through the surrounding area. He raised a column up out of the dirt, shaping a sphere at the top. It took minutes, so he kept the whole thing small. He wrapped his mental fingers around it, checked to make sure that he had a thorough 'grip', and squeezed. The material packed down with a faint crunch, becoming denser and stronger. What had been nothing but dirt became smoother and glossier.
"Huh," Cannai said, his ears coming up. "Intriguing. I've never seen that before." His eyes went unfocused. "It's an actual physical effect. The chakra isn't holding the current state, it made the change and made it permanent. When you end the technique and your chakra disperses, the material will still be denser. Will it be an issue if I break it?"
"I don't think so."
Cannai pushed on the uncompressed pillar experimentally. "Surprisingly strong." He pushed harder and the pillar broke, the uncompacted dirt sprawling across the ground the way dirt would. The sphere remained intact, rolling to a halt a foot or so away. The huge dog poked at it a few times, rolling it back and forth, then smashed down on it, which somehow blasted it to flinders instead of simply driving it into the dirt like a nail.
Hazō watched the chakra-saturated dirt burst under Cannai's ministrations. He lost track of the bits that arced up and away; he could see them with his eyes, but his inner senses were telling him that they had been annihilated. A moment later they recreated themselves in slightly different positions. (Or, according to his eyes, they fell back to the ground.)
"You said it could also filter materials?" Cannai asked. "Show me."
Hazō turned his metaphysical eyes to the red granite of the Multiple Earth Wall. Whatever Cannai said, he still wasn't anxious to make major disruptions or transformations to the ground of the Dog Territory. Besides, he could make more Multiple Earth Walls on the Human Path but the soil there might not be the same as what was here. The wall would be a better test.
He felt his way into the various samples, matching what his eyes could see on the labels with what his 'eyes' could 'see' inside the material. The Earthshaping sense was strange and it made his head buzz as his brain tried to map the new information onto known and comprehensible referents. The samples became a mélange of senses; the various iron samples were red/C/rough/sweettangy, rose/C#/rough/sweettangy, scarlet/C#/rough/tangysweet, and so on. The tin was blue/G#/soft/spicy, the copper was yellow/A/bendy/watery, the mica was steel/B2#/smooth/berry, and on and on through the dozens of things he'd brought for reference.
He turned his gaze into the granite, feeling around. He frowned at what he saw.
The granite wall was a jumbled mass of bits and bobs shoved together in utter disorder. There were similarities to various of his samples, but overall it felt mostly like...sand. How could it feel like sand? Sand was loose, it flowed when you poured it. You could build sandcastles and sand walls, but they fell apart easily whereas granite was obdurate and unyielding.
Perhaps the granite was...sand that had already been Earthshaped? Compacted, its strength and density increased?
He pushed those thoughts aside and looked again. The vast majority of the granite was that familiar sandy stuff, but a considerable amount of it was something else, something he didn't recognize. There were also traces of iron, which could be useful, and traces of other things he had no names for.
He grabbed that second thing, the unfamiliar one that was still in abundance. He mentally drew a box on the side of the wall nearest him, and within that box he chose for this thing to unite and naught else to remain.
Fine dust poured from the granite wall, sliding to the earth below and leaving behind a carved-out section of the wall in which sat a cube of...something.
"What is it?" Cannai asked, bending down to study the cube closely.
Hazō reached out and picked it up. It was the size of two fists and perfectly clear, so clear that it was hard to see. When he carefully poked the edges and corners he found that they were sharp but not overly so.
"I don't know?" he said. "The granite is made up of a lot of things. The majority of it is sand and there's a bunch of other bits and bobs, of which iron is the only one I recognized." He hefted the cube. "And then there's a lot of this stuff."
"Hm. It needs a name," Cannai mused. "It is like crystal, but not. It is not metal. Hm." He fell silent for several seconds, then nodded. "It was at the core of your wall, so let us call it corundum."
Hazō shrugged. It was as good a name as any.
"Can you make it in larger amounts?" Cannai asked.
"Sure," Hazō said. "I can render the entire wall down, get a massive chunk of the stuff. Let me get some of the metal out though. Iron is valuable and if we can actually create the stuff that would be amazing."
He turned back to the wall and combed through it until he had identified all the iron. It was mostly in tiny flecks but there were a few larger threads and pockets here and there.
Filtering something with Earthshaping consisted of two steps. The technique insisted that the substance be in one solid mass before it would eject everything else, so first Hazō had to move all of the iron to one place and fuse it together. Only then could he push aside the sand and corundum and other materials. He identified the iron and willed it to move, flowing through the stone. Most of it did. Some of it did not.
What.
He looked more closely and saw the problem; his chakra had not infused the iron. Not the larger segments of it, anyway. The tiny flecks, yes. Those were fully saturated in his spirit and they moved and reshaped themselves to his will as easily as anything else. The larger masses of iron were inviolate.
He frowned and focused, forcing his chakra into the metal. It penetrated the tiniest bit and then simply stopped, flat. It was like stabbing a knife into a rock; if the rock was a thin fleck then the knife could pierce through it. A thicker rock and the knife would scratch the surface but skitter off. Without his chakra completely suffused through the metal, Hazō could not affect it.
He scratched his neck, frowning as he thought. Finally, he found the flecks and threads that he could manipulate and commanded them to move to the largest pocket of iron, one about the size of his thumbnail and shaped something like a peanut. He took the other bits of iron too large to affect and reformed the stone around them, breaking them loose from their surrounding matrix, opening a path in front of them, and having the rock behind them expand to push them along.
While that was happening he focused on the chunk of metal that was the destination of the rest. He got his chakra as deep into it as it could go, which was barely the width of a hair, and pulled.
The metal that had been suffused moved to his will, peeling away from the rest of the material and giving him a sheet of foil so thin that it tore the instant it touched the surrounding stone. Still, it was fully suffused and thus could be manipulated, so he practiced twisting and folding it in various ways.
He made several more of the foil sheets and fused their edges together without issue, making a larger sheet the size of his hand. His chakra was still suffused through it, so he was able to fold it over on itself, making it thicker, building it up. He folded it again—
He lost contact with the chakra inside the folded-up wad. He remained in control of the outermost layer and could move that segment, but the inner part was beyond his reach.
With a frustrated sigh he focused on combining the various bits of iron into a singular whole, merging their outermost layers together. It was a garbage way to do it and the join would be too weak to do anything useful with the resulting mass, but it was sufficient to let the Earthshaping technique acknowledge the iron as a singular entity and therefore move on to the filtering phase of the operation.
Cannai waited patiently as the wall slowly disintegrated, leaving behind a shapeless blob of reddish metal. He peered closely at it, getting so close that his eye nearly touched the surface, then licked it. Several pieces broke off from the pressure of his tongue. He smacked his lips a few times, considering. He turned and similarly reviewed the various iron samples Hazō had brought.
"It is not entirely iron," he said at last. "There is something else in there as well. It tastes more like this one"—he tapped one of the ore samples—"than it tastes like the worked iron."
"Huh," Hazō said. So far as he had been able to tell, Earthshaping had purified the material down to a single nature, rejecting everything else. The technique considered this stuff to be pure iron but, now that Cannai had brought his attention to it, it wasn't pure. The various forms of worked iron were identical at a casual metaphysical glance, but when he brought all his attention to bear he could detect differences. Their sounds were all middle-C but each was very slightly off, like a mistuned koto string. Their 'flavor' components varied like the same kind of fruit grown in different soils. Something about what the blacksmith did must filter the iron, like the Earthshaping technique but even more delicate. Earthshaping was recognizing crimson as red and driving off all the yellows and whites, but the blacksmith's forge was recognizing crimson as red with wisps of mixed-in blue. It was disentangling the two colors and driving off the blue.
Was it possible that civilians had their own chakra arts and had successfully kept them secret from ninja for all of history?
Nah. That couldn't possibly be right.
Could it?
"Well, it's close to pure iron," Hazō said, pushing the potential illusions of history away. "I'm confident that we can sell it as high-grade ore. Leaf's metal problems are over, forever." It was true; out of a granite wall that probably amounted to a cubic yard he had pulled an amount of iron sufficient to fill a medium backpack. Not impressive given the chakra costs, except that the Multiple Earth Wall was not the most efficient way for a ninja to create granite. That honor went to the Massive and Rapid Infrastructure technique, which produced a wall nine yards high by one yard thick and potentially hundreds of yards long. One such wall would produce enough iron to keep every smith in Leaf busy.
Cannai was back to poking at the corundum cube. "I have never seen anything like this. It reminds me somewhat of the diamonds that I have seen various Summoners carry, but it is clear instead of sparkling."
Hazō chewed his cheek for a moment. "Hang on, let me try something." He extended his will towards the cube and began slowly running his mental fingers across it.
Over the next few minutes, as Cannai waited patiently, the cube melted and stretched. The corners folded in, the top rose up and grew bevels, and the interior of the newly-formed stone became smoother than any natural stone could be, its every flaw and imperfection wiped away by the gentle touch of Hazō's chakra.
At the end of seven minutes, Hazō was drenched in sweat and the corundum cube had reshaped itself into a faceted gemstone. It was still perfectly transparent and still did not sparkle but it had a geometric beauty to it.
"Quite lovely, in its own way," Cannai said. He studied the corundum 'gemstone' a moment longer. "Can you work some of the other materials into it? How precisely will the technique let you do that?"
"Let's find out," Hazō said. He turned back to the piles of dust that were left from the granite wall, thinking he would add some of the mica in hopes that the reflectiveness would give the 'gemstone' a bit of sparkle. Unfortunately, the dust had been torn apart to a miniscule size and there were no mica flakes remaining.
No problem. He peeled a layer off the mass of iron and manually rolled the corundum gem onto the foil sheet. He tore the iron foil into the smallest pieces he could manage and had them seep inwards, spreading them through the inside of the corundum.
The corundum shifted like ink being poured into water. Its color darkened into a rich, pure blue and, nine minutes later, Hazō was holding a faceted, sparkling sapphire the size of two fists.
"Now that is lovely," Cannai said. "Congratulations, Hazō. You have used your chakra to make something purely beautiful. Not for murder, not for houses. Purely for beauty."
Hazō smiled.
o-o-o-o
"And you just gave it to him?!" Noburi asked as he handed over the bottle of chakra-infused water.
"Relax," Hazō said, and then paused to sigh in relief as the chakra flowed back into his empty coils just as the water soothed his parched throat. He had been on the Seventh Path for hours, draining himself dry with the various experiments until he had to come home to recharge.
"Relax, Nobby," he said again, restarting the sentence now that he wasn't on the border of chakra exhaustion. "You can still be the prettiest princess. I'll make you a bigger one. What do you think—you want a sapphire the size of your barrel?"
Noburi snorted. "Yuck it up, Mr Mew." He became serious again. "So, aside from us being able to produce gemstones sufficient to bury every other mine on the planet, did you come up with any other ways to break civilization?"
"I think so," Hazō said. "That corundum stuff is strong and clearer than any glass I've ever seen. I can make telescopes with it. More importantly, it'll make great windows."
Noburi waited. After a moment it became clear that there would be no more. "That's it? Windows?"
"Hey, you try keeping a house well-lit and warm in the winter! Now shoo. This might be dangerous."
"Fuck that with a bandsaw," Noburi said. "I'm staying right here so that I can drag your ass away from whatever horrible thing you conjure up." He sat down on one of the logs that had been placed in the middle of Gōketsu Seal Research Facility #4 exactly to be sat upon.
Hazō felt his eyes prickle slightly and his throat grow a lump. He swallowed it away and smiled. "Thank you, Noburi. I'm afraid this is also going to be super boring."
Noburi shrugged. "Best get to it, then."
Hazō rested a hand on his brother's shoulder for a moment, then sat down and made the handseals for the Earthshaping jutsu.
Night was falling and the facility was lit only by a trio of bonfires. Jiraiya's Awesome Daybright Lantern seals would have provided steadier and whiter light, but Hazō didn't want any other seals running while he was doing this.
He took out a chunk of pure corundum that he had saved from his earlier experiments on the Seventh Path. It had been carefully shaped to match the one-stroke seal that was the first of Jiraiya's training series. It had been compressed to provide hardness and its insides had been smoothed until the thing was utterly flawless. It was a three dimensional object in the shape of a seal and, if Hazō could successfully infuse his chakra into it, he hoped it would become an actual seal.
He reached into it as gently as he could manage, moving very slowly so as to eliminate any risk of distorting the material even slightly. It took him nearly half an hour to fully saturate the palm-sized chunk of almost-glass. Once his chakra was evenly distributed, he checked over the corundum, looking for the tiniest flaw or chip. Storage stress, or perhaps simply passage between Paths, had led to some miniscule distortions around the edges. He spent an hour wiping them away with infinite patience until the structure was once more perfect. Behind him, Noburi was a steady and reassuring presence, waiting silently so as not to intrude.
Hazō basked in the love of his brother for several long seconds, then set those emotions aside along with everything else. He calmed himself, cycling his chakra smoothly and fluidly until he was at peace, until he was perfectly focused.
His chakra, spread evenly throughout the corundum, shifted into the pattern associated with the Puff of Air seal from Jiraiya's series. He fit it to the inside surface of the object and gave it the twist that was used to infuse a seal.
Nothing happened.
Frowning, Hazō tried twice more with no better result.
He forced himself to go back to the very beginning and work forward. What might he be doing wrong?
Making a seal consisted of tw... No. No, making a seal was three steps, not two. First he infused his chakra into the ink using the standard ritual: he took the ritual lump of brass in his right hand and buffed it on the leather of his belt to insure that it was clean, then he recited the nonsense rhyme that cleared his chakra pathways, then he dipped the brass in the ink and blew gently across the surface while pushing the tiniest pulse of chakra through his fingertips and into the ink.
That was the process for making the ink, step one in the three step process of making a seal. Once it was done successfully you could move onto step two: use the ink to brush the shape of the seal onto paper, applying a tiny chakra manipulation to make the chakra from the ink stay bound to the paper. (It was such a trivial exercise that it had been years since he even noticed he was doing it!) When the design was complete and the chakra firmly anchored to the paper, only then did you infuse your chakra into it and turn it from a paper-and-ink-and-chakra blank into a functional seal.
Hazō had used his chakra to 'draw the blank', forming the corundum into the shape he needed. He had filled it with his chakra. He had made the action of infusion. It hadn't worked.
Obviously it hadn't worked! There had been no directionality when he was making the blank! The brush strokes weren't simply a way to put ink on the page, they were a way to form chakra pathways. The stroke of the bristles was what made the channels that you infused. Hazō had formed the blank willy-nilly and then tried to put chakra into it. He had essentially tried to infuse a seal blank that had been stamped onto the page. No wonder it hadn't worked! There were no pathways, nothing to activate. It was as though he had tried to walk through a painting of a door.
He quickly raised up another Multiple Earth Wall and recreated a blank, this time focusing on how he moved the chakra in the process, which parts he formed first and second, recreating the stroke order to the best of his ability.
He didn't even bother attempting to infuse it. He had nothing like the control he needed for this; the result was as though he had drawn the blank with his feet. Sure, if you did it carefully enough and the desired image was simple enough then you could produce something that looked generally right, but it wouldn't be what you needed. It wouldn't be the best you could make. Not unless you put in a lot of practice. Enough practice that your control with your feet was as good as your control with your hands. Which was...possible? Probably. It seemed like the chakra wanted to do what he was asking but couldn't understand him quite well enough. If he spent more time practicing with Earthshaping, if he got better... Ugh.
Sighing, he broke the corundum samples and the rest of the Multiple Earth Wall down into dust and buried them deep in the ground. No reason to take the slightest risk of his efforts leaking.
"C'mon, Nobs," he said, standing up with a creak. "Let's get some dinner. And then I've got work to do."
Author's Note: The cube that Hazō made was pure alumina (Al2O3), aka corundum, which makes up 11-13% of granite. If you take corundum and dope it with chromium you get ruby. Dope it with iron and you get sapphire. Dope it with beryllium and silicon and you get emeralds.
Obviously, Hazō and Cannai don't know the names of any of these things aside from the gemstones. I was ambivalent about what to call them—on the one hand, I could make up a fantastical name, but that would be one more thing for the reader to remember. Then I remembered that MfD is a work of translation; as you all know, the characters are speaking in their native ElementalNationsese and @Velorien and I are simply translating it to English for your convenience. Therefore, you may assume that they are actually calling it something appropriate for their time and place and we are translating it to more familiar terms. You're welcome.
Other experiments you did and their outcomes:
Q: Can we make better lenses out of pure silica?
A: Yes
Q: En masse fabrication of metal items?
A: You can produce metal items VERY, VERY, VERRRRY slowly. So slowly that it's not worth it unless you're, I dunno, trapped in a cave and need to make a thousand pickaxes or something
Q: Can we make sharper kunai (with compressed blades?)
Q: Is a kunai made of compressed metal stronger than regular kunai?
A: Hazō did not try the experiment because it would have taken too long. You could in theory tear a chunk of metal apart into super thin sheets, compress each sheet, then fuse the sheets back together as though you were 3D-printing a kunai. In terms of time it's definitely not going to be worth it to do it this way. You can do the experiment if you want to blow an entire day on it.
Q: Can we compress coal into diamonds?
A: Yes
Q: Can we make sheet glass for windows?
A: Yes, although corundum is a better choice
Q: Look at other gemstones and try to recreate them.
A: As mentioned in the update, Hazō can make sapphires. He doesn't know what beryllium etc are so cannot do the appropriate doping for other gems
Q: [Can we reproduce] a sample of masterwork steel?
A: TBD
Q: Examine the Honey Cave crystals with ES. Are they unusual in any way?
A: TBD
Q: If we compress silica, does it compare with weapons-grade metal?
A: TBD
Additionally, the rules shown for iron apply to all metals: you can only affect very thin pieces at a time, you can rip larger chunks apart very slowly, you can bond the outermost layers together, etc. Again, this is for all metals including gold, silver, copper, etc.
Talk about getting Kagome SC. Should be easy with Dragons and his sealing, right? If not, what can we offer? Maybe mandatory OPSEC classes for Kagome?
Get Yuno SC as well.
Akane's mission was leaked, we need to find out how/from who and prepare accordingly. Also look into seeing if any of the rest of us are being targeted as such. Also if there are any deniable assets she knows of who could've done this
Asking Hidan for help with tracking Akane's blood. Fine idea? He likes us, is AMITY enforcer? Ask Asuma? Ask Ami, if not?
See about getting access to spices/items from other countries to cross-reference with Canvass for Akane's attackers. If the Chunin Exam is still going on, use that. Independent of Asuma action.
Explain ES and what it can do, thoughts on it? Does it need to go to Asuma immediately?
Asuma
Sanity check below with Mari
Discuss getting Kagome SC for Dragonwar. More Kagome-level sealing is big help. Sidenote: someone like Sasori could also help. Hint Hint.
Hagoromo: Don't want to involve them in our schools, possible sabotage, fundamental difference in ideas. Collaboration on Till n Fills preferred, maybe tutoring, like TH for Reo, joint lessons, etc..
Promotion to Sealing Special Jonin. Orochimaru fancies us his peer, we think it's time.
See about getting access to spices/items from other countries to cross-reference with Canvass for Akane's attackers. If the Chunin Exam is still going on, use that.
If Mari clears, ask about Hidan's help
Hazou/Sealing
Use SC to check list of seals and work on them if they're doable without SSA. Have Kagome work with the blood tracking and security seals if possible.
He didn't even bother attempting to infuse it. He had nothing like the control he needed for this; the result was as though he had drawn the blank with his feet. Sure, if you did it carefully enough and the desired image was simple enough then you could produce something that looked generally right, but it wouldn't be what you needed. It wouldn't be the best you could make. Not unless you put in a lot of practice. Enough practice that your control with your feet was as good as your control with your hands. Which was...possible? Probably. It seemed like the chakra wanted to do what he was asking but couldn't understand him quite well enough. If he spent more time practicing with Earthshaping, if he got better... Ugh.
@eaglejarl@Velorien@Paperclipped Would it be possible to get a stunt to learn 3D sealing with at this point, representing the specialized practice necessary?
Did... did Cannai know the OG Humans, pre-Sage? Or maybe the first generation afterwards? These are pretty modern expressions and Hazou doesn't recognize them.
We know that Cannai took the mantle of Dog Boss from the previous Dog Summoner... maybe Cannai is a 2nd Generation Dog Summon and the Second Ever Dog Boss?
Noburi waited. After a moment it became clear that there would be no more. "That's it? Windows?"
"Hey, you try keeping a house well-lit and warm in the winter! Now shoo. This might be dangerous."
"Fuck that with a bandsaw," Noburi said. "I'm staying right here so that I can drag your ass away from whatever horrible thing you conjure up." He sat down on one of the logs that had been placed in the middle of Gōketsu Seal Research Facility #4 exactly to be sat upon.
"So," Keiko said carefully, "the upfront payment will be three pounds of diamonds, the full-time availability of Pankurashun and five elite pangolin of my choice, plus the training jutsu for each member of Gōketsu and five other jutsu of our choice. After that, we agree to a monthly payment of sixty pounds of gold in exchange for ninety of the Pantokrator's Judging Eyes." She paused, considering, then nodded. "My clan leader will probably be angry with me for doing such a poor job of bargaining but I suspect he'll accept the deal rather than shaming me by forcing me to go back on my word with such an important ally as the Pangolin Clan."
Pantsā snorted but took no other notice of her addition to the upfront cost. "I shall ensure that the diamonds are all of good quality," he said magnanimously. "You, however, will acknowledge the terms of our jutsu training, since it seems to have been left out of your statement of the bargain." He paused, then leaned in slightly. "You will ensure that our jutsu are kept secret, Summoner. Nor will you attempt to study or modify them." His tone had shifted from the nearly playful one he'd had while bargaining, a note of warning hanging just barely out of sight behind the words. A shiver ran down Kei's spine on icy feet.
Jiraiya rolled his eyes. "I'll pitch in when I can, Kagome, but I'm just a little busy these days." He looked in the basket of diamonds again and shook his head. "In the meantime, you just solved all our financial problems, Keiko. Pantsā was generous; those are all high-quality diamonds. We can pay off the compound with what's in there, plus get some of the repairs done—"
"Plus have a decent wedding," Mari-sensei said archly.
"Don't distract me, woman. Yes, fine, wedding. Whatever. Point is, that's enough money to keep us afloat and relatively comfortable until some of the things that I have in the works come through. More importantly, the diamonds are a signal; Pantsā could easily have given us lower quality stones, but he didn't. He intends to play fair on the deal and is actually going a little out of his way to make it good for us. You'll have serious combat power, plus you should be able to find specialists who can plug holes in the team's skillsets. From what you told me about Akane, that conditioning jutsu is badass. I won't object at all to having it myself, and it will be a major edge for you kids. If the other jutsu he can give us are of even somewhat similar quality then this is going to be a real boost for the clan." He shook his head in disbelief. "I didn't expect you to get anything remotely this good. Great job, kid."
Hazō: Sorry mari it was another burst, but something interesting did came out of it. *Put a saphire the size of a baby on the table* i solved the money issue.
"Well, it's close to pure iron," Hazō said, pushing the potential illusions of history away. "I'm confident that we can sell it as high-grade ore. Leaf's metal problems are over, forever." It was true; out of a granite wall that probably amounted to a cubic yard he had pulled an amount of iron sufficient to fill a medium backpack. Not impressive given the chakra costs, except that the Multiple Earth Wall was not the most efficient way for a ninja to create granite. That honor went to the Massive and Rapid Infrastructure technique, which produced a wall nine yards high by one yard thick and potentially hundreds of yards long. One such wall would produce enough iron to keep every smith in Leaf busy.
Too many problems. Beyond the Gōketsu endeavors, Leaf was facing iron shortages as two of the mines near Tanzaku Gai had run dry. The Tower had that well in hand because of its obvious importance to military readiness, but it meant they weren't paying as much attention to the equally important salt shortage, which, if it continued, would make it harder for ordinary people to make it through the winter as the costs of preserved meats from the butcheries would skyrocket. The Ministry was facing the expected problem of middlemen pocketing the profits from the lowered taxes, rather than the common people. Worse, the Land of Fire was dealing with persistent banditry problems – no doubt from refugees and displaced farmers from the war now preying on those that kept their lands and were now enjoying a bumper crop.
