Thank you for the analysis. This is wonderfully thorough and detailed. I think we probably shouldn't worry about keeping our breakthrough secret (and may even want to take steps to make it known to relevant parties). Asuma has already asked us to assist Orochimaru until further notice, and Sasori spending time on 3D sealing and getting distracted from necromancy is in our interest.
Honestly I think there's a pretty strong case for keeping it away from Sasori:
- Asuma might get very upset if he finds out that one of the Akatsuki has freely obtained an incredibly valuable shiny that was previously exclusive to Leaf.
- While Hazou and Orochimaru are assuredly not going to teach anyone else 3D Sealing, it's not out of the question that Sasori might teach someone else. If we let Sasori in on the secret, further proliferation becomes plausible.
- Sasori might not actually be properly distracted by it. Let's say we tell him about it, show him our notes, and teach him Earthshaping so he can start work on it himself. He's not going to be in a position to dive into the land of Primordial Sealing until he's spent months grinding Earthshaping up to sufficient levels. While it's plausibly a benefit to necromancy, we would be unable to rely on it distracting him in the particular timeframes we need him distracted.
Personally, I say we just don't make a big fuss about it. Try to minimize rumours, of course, but we don't have to keep their mere existence secret. Even if they know we can 3D Seal, they don't know how good 3D Seals are. Even if we use them in a big flashy manner and they learn how good 3D Seals are, we're already a max-priority target for kidnapping so it's not like things will get any
worse. Plus, they won't have reason to see 3D Sealing as something they
need, so much as just a strong shiny they might want (i.e. Akatsuki won't barge into Leaf and violate AMITY by stealing us out of our clan compound). The Elemental Nations is full of ninja with their own special tricks that nobody else has access to, however they might wish otherwise. Hazou being "the 3D Seal guy" doesn't make him anything too unusual unless we bring a large amount of attention to the true high-end capabilities of 3D Sealing.
Orochimaru is also inclined, by his reclusive nature, to not advertise the merits and capabilities of 3D Sealing. If the practice is kept just between the two of us, it's unlikely that we'll draw too much attention because of it. We shouldn't draw attention to it ourselves, but we should feel free to make use of it when it suits our strategic goals.
With respect to Orochimaru, the only real reason I can see for not sharing our findings with him is if we're worried he'll shake us down for intel on the crystal we used, and then run over to Honey and steal all the crystals for himself. If we find a better source of substrate (like perhaps from a Dog with Crystal Release or somesuch), or if we find a way to generate more of that crystal ourselves, or if we
can't find a better source of substrate and hope that he'll be able to figure it out and then share with us, then in my mind there's zero reason to hold back.
After all, we
did figure it out first. It would be a shame if we waited too long and Orochimaru figured it out on his own and took all the credit.
edit: I think the right balance for Orochimaru might be sending him a letter containing our findings. We'll detail the experiments we did, being perfectly honest in how we did everything, and we'd detail everything we know about the Honey cave crystal, except instead of saying that it's from that cave in Honey we'll say that it's from an "unfortunately finite" source and offer to share our remaining samples in case any more can be made.
Conducted through text, we aren't going to get his aura looming down on us as he shakes us down for information, he'll have little reason to question the idea that we have no further sources of the crystal, and he'll hone in on the idea that he might be able to produce more out of our remaining samples. Done right, we'll get all the benefits of "Orochimaru helps us try to get more crystal" with none of the risk of "Orochimaru raids the Honey cave and takes all the crystals for himself".
