"Is it just me or is he weird?" Ino asked, nibbling on one of the chilled and syruped pears that were the dessert of a dinner that required letting one's belt out with a happy sigh. Given that she was lounging against his chest, Hazō spared a thought towards hoping she didn't drip sugar syrup on his nice shirt. Then he dismissed the concern and went back to absently carding his fingers through her long hair.
"I learned sealing from Kagome-sensei and I'm currently instructing Orochimaru," he said. "My standards for weird might be a little skewed."
She tipped her head back so that she could see him, allowing her to accurately poke him in the shoulder. Her wicked smile turned into outrage when he swiped a finger across her pear and booped her on the nose with it in vengeance for the poke. Her eyes crossed, trying to see the gloop he had left behind, but then she gave it up for a bad job and scrubbed it off with the back of her hand and wagged a finger at him. He grinned unrepentantly.
"Okay, but he spent the whole lesson talking about slightly intenser forms of Academy-level exercises, interspersed with talking about all the horrible things that can happen if you make a mistake during research...that's weird, right? And the outcomes..." She shuddered.
Hazō snorted. "Oh, please. Having your perception of color inverted? Loss of control over one's chakra so that you boost at random times and not when you want? Self-immolating? Technique hackers are adorable."
"Hey, self-immolating sounds pretty bad to me!"
"Once again: oh, please. Where are the portals to dimensions made of blades and madness? Where are the sapient broccoli that sprout from your face, crab-like pincers slowly getting closer to your eye every time you repress a thought? Where is the 'every member of your bloodline explodes'? Could I at least get a little 'every trace of you and everything you have ever touched is redacted from reality, all memories being wiped and almost all written references becoming blank except for a word or two here and there that serves as a cautionary tale causing other sealmasters to wonder if they ever met you, collaborated with you, had your children, were your children...'?"
"You know you're kinda messed up, right?" she asked, still leaning back to look at him so that they were mutually upside-down. "I mean, seriously. You are a bright spot in my existence, you make me happy, my world is better for having you in it and I would be sad if you were not, but yow. Dark."
"Bah." He waved dismissively. "I'm realistic, that's all. Once you've learned to appreciate that the universe is merely a flat and cracked layer of paint barely covering primal insanity, bursting into flames just doesn't really rate."
"Hmph." She went back to a more comfortable position and bonked him with an affectionate headbonk. Hazō chuckled and resumed stroking her hair.
"I do approve of his priorities in mentioning those things up front, though," he said after a moment. "Should have spent more time on it, but at least he mentioned it. Good to let new students know the risks first, before they get in too deep. If he had any brains we'd spend the next week doing nothing but memorizing safety protocols and stories of past jutsu fractures, plus being tested to make sure we remember all the details of each one. Gotta make sure that students have really absorbed the warnings before you start giving them information they could misuse or screw up. Very important that they have images of their digestive tracts being reversed or interdimensional horrors slowly eating lines across their bodies over the course of months before they touch anything chakra-related."
"I don't like this game. Can we play something else?"
"Hmmm," Hazō hmmmed thoughtfully, apparently 'not noticing' her request to change the subject. "Actually, you're right. He's not going to be telling us about things like that. When he tells horror stories it will probably be about how only one of the hacker's shirtsleeves got half an inch shorter and the color became very slightly more green, or how a soft beam of sunlight followed them everywhere for a week, or the room became just slightly cooler than comfortable, but not quite cold enough that it was worth getting up to get a sweater."
"You really are a snob. You know that, right?"
He chuckled again. "Fine. Changing topics, changing topics...um... Oh, have your people been hit with that cough? It's going around the Gōketsu estate something fierce."
She tipped her head back again and glared at him. "In addition to being a snob, you are terrible at verbal canoodling."
"Verbal canoodling?"
"It means—"
"I know what it means. Mari always said that she and Jiraiya were going to their room to canoodle when she meant they were going to have loud sex."
Ino's porcelain skin flushed deep pink. "That is not what I meant!" she yelped. She took a deep breath and looked grumpily up at him. "First, that's not what anyone normal means when they use the word 'canoodling'. In this case, what I meant was romantic talking. Nothing heavy, just sharing thoughts and feelings and connecting."
"Ohhhh." He nodded soberly. "Right, got it. Okay, start over."
She waited expectantly.
"You're supposed to say 'is it just me or is he weird'," Hazō stage-whispered.
Ino snorted and rolled her eyes. "Fine. Hey, is it just me or is he weird?"
"I know, right?" Hazō replied. "So weird. Who spends that much time telling 'horror' stories?"
"Still snobby."
"Drat! Okay, one more time. Start over."
She sighed dramatically. "Fine. 'Hey, is it just me or is he weird?'"
"So weird!" Hazō agreed, nodding fervently. "All those horror stories without telling us nearly enough about jutsu hacking. And he didn't even mention your new shirt once! That is new, right? I don't think I've seen it before. Did it come from that little boutique downtown?"
Ino burst out laughing. "You have no idea what boutiques exist in this town."
"I might. I have depths."
"Name one boutique in Leaf."
"Ah, but if I give in to your implied extortion then you'll just do it again in the future. Plus, I would ruin the air of mystery I am cultivating—right now you aren't completely certain how much I do or don't know and that makes me intriguing and exciting. If I answer your question then I'll be boring and predictable and no fun. You might fall out of love with me, and that would destroy me utterly since without you in my life I would be miserable."
"Deflection from the question, light humor, and shifting into your positive feelings towards me in order to create bonding. Did Mari teach you that line as a way to get out of not admitting you don't know something?"
"I have no idea what you mean." That was exactly what had happened, but Mari had also taught him not to break cover even when he was clearly busted.
"Yes, the shirt is new, and thank you for noticing," Ino said, letting him off the hook with a smile. "You may have a kiss as a reward." She pursed her lips, tipping her head up without lifting it from his chest.
A lifetime of flexibility training to enable his taijutsu had rendered Hazō far more bendy than most civilians would imagine possible. Still, there were limits to everything and this was beyond them. Unable to bend fully in half, he rolled out from under Ino, cradling her head in the crook of his arm so she didn't flop uncomfortably as he slid down and claimed his reward.
By the time they separated, both of them were breathing a little heavily. Ino cleared her throat and shifted back slightly, putting an inch or two more space betwixt herself and temptations of impropriety. She captured his hand in her left hand and leaned her head on her right.
"You're a pretty good kisser there, bucko," she said, stroking the back of his hand with her thumb. "Almost like you've had a lot of practice. Tell me the truth—how many damsels' hearts have you captured before mine?"
"One," Hazō said, looking her in the eyes. "Akane and you. The only two women I've ever kissed like that. The only two women I've ever felt this way about."
Ino blinked quickly, then let go of his hand so she could wipe her eyes. "No fair! I was trying to be silly and lighthearted, but you went and got all intense and romantic on me." She cuddled in close, tucking her head under his chin and wrapping her arms around his chest so she could squeeze tight.
Hazō chuckled and stroked her back as the two of them lay side by side in the candlelight, the slow rhythms of their breath falling into a single soft susurration that made the world seem calm and quiet and peaceful.
Author's Note: Not feeling it today. This was intended to be an interlude originally but it fits nicely with the previous chapter and it's fun. (For me, anyway. Hopefully y'all enjoy too.)
"Hello all," the Eighth Hokage said, dwarfed by the breadth of his conical hat. "I have bad news. It's not urgent, but it's still important. I'll keep it simple. Our ally, the hidden village of Isan, has been destroyed."
Gasps and exhalations went around the Clan Council's table. Hazō quickly decided to put on a troubled frown as he resisted the urge to check how Nara was reacting.
"Shortly after the murder of Lord Seventh, we sent messengers to Isan. They were unable to find the village based on our known landmarks and returned home after a week. We sent out another team to search for Isan, this time equipped with hundreds of skywalkers. The first team had noticed an oddly clear site on the mountainside, and the new team eventually realized that it had to be Isan's former location. The buildings were completely gone, though their foundations remained. The village's trees had all been knocked down and, in many cases, blown up. The area of dead trees seemed to originate from downhill of the village, as if the village had been engulfed in a giant cone-shaped ninjutsu by someone casting it from below. This is what convinced me that the village had actually been destroyed, since it's possible that they all decided to up and leave to the eastern continent or something.
"We searched for more evidence of who or what destroyed them, but didn't find much. There is one thing we noticed that was unusual – we didn't find any caches of seals or ninjutsu. We think that whoever did this also stole all of Isan's techniques once they'd finished casting their genocidal technique.
"In terms of who has the power to do this, this is well beyond any known jinchūriki's ninjutsu in scope. Really, I have to assume it was Akatsuki for some unknown reason. None of Deidara's explosions at Nagi Island were large enough to manage this… but who knows what new techniques he could have developed in the last two years.
"Regardless, we have no evidence to make any accusations. I intend to send a messenger to inform AMITY about our findings tomorrow morning and let the chips fall where they may. I don't think we have anything to gain from trying to cover this up, and everyone will find out about it anyway when Isan fails to show up at the next Chūnin Exams. If anyone has objections, now would be the time to speak."
"If this was indeed Akatsuki's actions," Lady Amori said, "would they raze Leaf for daring to speak up?"
"They cannot expect us to never say a word about the death of our close allies," said Lord Akimichi. "If it was indeed them, and they want their secret kept, I do not think they would hesitate to blackmail us into silence with their village-killing ninjutsu."
"We're well aware of the nature of Akatsuki's tyranny," Naruto said. "But we don't have any evidence against them here besides the sheer scale of the destruction. I assume they're going to take charge of the investigation, and that means there will never be any evidence against them. Still, I intend to try to use this to swing the villages against Akatsuki. Honestly, the combined forces of the Elemental Nations probably isn't enough to take them down, but incremental pushes like this will help us build the alliance we need to eventually get out from under Akatsuki's thumb."
"A whole village," Lady Minami said. "Our allies. An entire culture. Wiped out by some monsters with more power than sense."
Hazō carefully didn't react.
Naruto shook his head sadly. "Whatever happened to them, I don't think they're coming back anytime soon. Anyway, thank you for your time. I mostly wanted to keep you informed and get any opinions you had. As always, you can find one of me if you have anything you want to add in terms of navigating this correctly. We're going to be weakened by the loss of an ally, but I'm confident this is something we can survive. You may carry on with your days now. Dismissed."
o-o-o
The door slid open, and Nara Shigeru mustered the will to look up. He realized he probably needed to bow or something. He closed his eyes and counted to three. He opened them, and pushed himself up from his chair, slowly ending his blissful relaxation to stand. He bowed, keeping his back straight.
"Greetings, Lord Gōketsu."
"Hello, Nara," the young man said, his eyes flicking around the front room of the Leaf Ninjutsu Library. "I'm here to learn Earth Element ninjutsu."
"That is an appropriate thing to do here," Shigeru said. "The list of available ninjutsu is public. Which one would you like to learn?"
"All of them."
"Excuse me?"
"I'd like to learn all the Earth Element ninjutsu in the library," Lord Gōketsu said. "And the Chameleon technique as well, since it's non-elemental."
"I see," Shigeru said. "Would you like me to arrange a tutor, or would you like the technique scrolls instead?"
"Just the scrolls. While you're at it, get all the Water and Wind Element techniques as well. For my teammates."
"I… see." Altogether, that would be a lot of ninjutsu scrolls. It would take Shigeru a lot of effort to fetch them all. Still, the young man was a clan lord. Shikamaru would likely be irritated if Shigeru went inside the archive and took a nap instead of fetching the scroll copies.
"Very well, Lord Gōketsu. Allow me a few minutes, please."
One foot after another, Nara Shigeru disappeared into the ninjutsu archives.
o-o-o
Knock knock. "Come in!"
Hazō entered the room, only to jump back as Noburi thrust his palm at the doorway and yelled "Water Element: Heavenly Typhoon!"
"Noburi!" Hazō said from around the corner in the hall. "No ninjutsu in the house! Or do you not remember the dining room Jin wrecked?"
Noburi laughed from within his room. "I was just showing you the scroll. Look, Hazō! Water Element: Heavenly Typhoon!"
Hazō peeked around the corner. Indeed, Noburi had thrust the ninjutsu scroll towards the doorway. From the distance, Hazō couldn't quite make out the dense text describing the internal chakra manipulations needed to form the ninjutsu nonlethally. While it may have been safer to have tutors teach them, Leaf at large may have noticed the young Gōketsu rapidly memorizing all of Leaf's public techniques. Hopefully the Nara docent knew how to keep quiet.
"You're very funny," Hazō said, stepping into the room as Noburi turned back to the scroll. "Making me think that you're casting potentially lethal ninjutsu in the house."
Noburi backhanded Hazō's gripe into the wall. "Why else did we build everything out of granite? It can take a hit from ninjutsu, so I figure it deserves to take a hit from ninjutsu. Anyway, what's up?"
"I need to talk to the Toad Sages."
"Good for you?" Noburi asked, raising an eyebrow. He put the scroll away and kicked back on his bed. "I think they're somewhere in Turtle right now. If you get moving, you can probably catch them before they get on King Kamehameha's back."
Hazō shook his head. "No, I need you to summon the Toad Sages. Not right now, obviously, but tomorrow night."
"I don't think that's a good idea, Hazō," Noburi said. "They really don't like being summoned. Says it hurts their bones, or some nonsense like that. I think that even for Jiraiya, they mostly had him come to them, rather than the other way around. Look, they made it clear that they're only keeping their contract with me so that they can train Naruto for a couple hours a week, and even that's too much for their tastes. They were fine being summoned the one time to help me and Yuno work some stuff out. Every time since then, they've been getting pissier and pissier about being made to come to the Human Path."
"They still invite you over for dinner, though, right?" Hazō said. "Aren't you pretty close with them?"
Noburi shrugged. "That's like once every couple of months. And I wouldn't say I'm close with them. I'm buttering them up as much as any summoner would butter up their powerful, knowledgeable, and surprisingly loose-lipped almost-bosses, but they know that. And they were pretty clear that they didn't really care if I was going to die otherwise, because unless it was 3pm Tuesday for their regularly-scheduled Naruto training, they weren't going to answer my summons. Every time I get them over here is a whole-ass negotiation. Whatever you want from them, I think you probably want to pop down to Turtle to get it."
"I want to show them lithosealing," Hazō said. "I told them I figured out how to make three-dimensional seals, and they didn't believe me. Well, I've now actually made three-dimensional seals. They told me not to infuse anything on the Seventh Path, and I'd rather not surprise them by showing up with a rune in hand. If they want to see it, they'll need to come here. So, could you tell them that and get them to come over?"
Noburi sighed. "I guess a world-shattering sealing innovation is pretty important. Gamabunta should have taken a couple toadlets along with him for me to reverse summon to. And hey, maybe the Sage's luck will shine on us and instead of being double-pissed, the Toad Sages'll be happy to get rid of their turtle-back seasickness and visit the Human Path for once."
o-o-o
"Summoning Technique: Shima!"
A puff of gray smoke revealed the tiny, purple-headed Toad Sage, one of the most powerful denizens of the Seventh Path who, in a couple weeks' time, would stand shoulder-to-shoulder with the other Clan Bosses and face down the Dragons. She glanced around the clearing, noting Noburi, Hazō, Kei, and Kagome, before she locked onto the rock hovering above a tree stump in the center of the brightly-lit clearing.
"Oh, is that the damn thing?" she asked, hopping towards the slowly-descending rune. "Hurry up and get Fukasaku over here, boy. He'll want to give it a lick."
Noburi bowed and retreated into the woods, where Snowflake and a half-dozen of her sisters had valiantly sacrificed their evenings in order to ferry chakra so that the second Toad Sage could be summoned.
Shortly thereafter, Fukasaku joined his wife of untold centuries in poking around the eldritch rune that hovered above the tree stump. Hazō gave them a few minutes to confer before he slowly walked over.
The odd chakra-conductive crystal from the cave in Honey formed the pathways by which Hazō's chakra flowed through the rune, and it was stabilized by a matrix of purified marble that was ever-so-slightly less than clear. The flickering glow of dozens of burning braziers left the perfectly-clear crystal within the rune barely visible through the cloudy purified marble, giving the impression of a living bloodstream in the negative, pulsing and shifting as the fires licked high in the nighttime breeze.
The Toad Sages grew quiet as Hazō approached, leaving behind only the rune's faint, low-pitched scraping in the back of Hazō's skull. Thankfully, neither of the Toad Sages had actually licked the thing.
"I remember you had some doubts that I could create three-dimensional seals. Hopefully, this lays those doubts to rest."
"You're certainly laying something to rest here, boy," Fukasaku said, not taking his eye off the slowly-descending rune. "I'll skip all the 'holy crap, this thing is really weird!' nonsense. You said you already blew up a few of these and reality didn't break?"
"That's right."
"Hmph. You must have been real confident, huh? I think even making one of these would be a terribly big risk, and activating it is a whole step up."
"With respect, sir, I was very confident. And it worked out."
Fukasaku harrumphed. He crossed his arms and continued to stare at the rune.
"I take it you're going to show us what happens when it's activated, aren't you?" Shima asked.
"Of course. We've done a few detonations by now, so we've got a pretty good idea of the safe radius. That radius is pretty large, even though this is the equivalent of a puffer explosive," Hazō said, pulling out a pre-made minimum-strength explosive tag and detonating it in his hand with a soft pop. He resisted the urge to shake the stinging away, and instead pointed at the woods where he'd walked over from. "When you're ready, you can join us over in the woods that way."
"Hah, no need for that, my boy," Shima said. "We'll put up a barrier and watch it explode up close and personal. No real risk to that – if we get popped, you just have Noburi summon us again. You can leave an Earth Clone behind to activate it on our mark. You did do this with an Earth Clone before, right?"
"Yes, I can do that ma'am," Hazō said, internally grimacing. If the Toad Sages got popped, Noburi wouldn't have the chakra to summon them again tonight. They'd probably only be able to summon the Sages again the next night, and he didn't put it past the Toad Sages to complain even more about having to do this all a second time. "Bear in mind there's an activation delay, which seems like it's between thirty and sixty seconds."
"Yeah, yeah, Noburi gave us the gist. Hop off to your bunker and give us some more time to inspect it. We'll tell the clone to go when we're ready."
Hazō made his Earth Clone and retreated to the fortifications with his team. They waited there for several tense minutes until the quiet night was split by an earth-shattering BOOM.
"They're still here," Noburi said, once their ears had finished ringing and the forest's various chakra beasts had finished streaming away from the unearthly explosion. "I can feel them draining my chakra still."
"Good," Hazō said. "Let's go see how they made out."
The Toad Sages had backed off enough from the rune that they weren't caught in the shallow crater left behind. Still, they stood in the middle of a small circle of pristine grass that looked very out-of-place next to the fallen trees and torn-up dirt surrounding the rune's former location.
"Well, that wasn't bad at all," Fukasaku said. "I thought for a second we'd hear the aching screams of reality as it was shredded at its roots, but instead it was just a big explosion!"
"It was really a rather nice explosion," Shima said, giving Hazō a rare smile. "Sorry for giving you a hard time earlier. It just seemed really improbable that some random whelp would manage something like this. I guess we didn't account for the fact that you're Jiraiya's whelp."
"Thank you both," Hazō said. "I know I made some wild claims about bringing Jiraiya back to life, but I think this shows that I can actually do the impossible when I put my mind to it. I don't intend to stop until he's standing here beside us. Right now… things are difficult. I can't see the path to get him back. But I haven't given up. And I will never give up, as long as I still draw breath. Honestly, depending on how things go? Maybe even beyond that."
The Toad Sages looked at Hazō for several long moments, taking his measure. They glanced at each other, and something unsaid passed between them that Hazō couldn't follow.
"That's all well and good," Shima said, the kind smile returning to her face. "But don't get carried away with it and take the Paths with you. Jiraiya was our friend for decades, but we've lived for centuries, and we've come to terms with his death. It's been over two years, after all. I wouldn't complain about having him back… but sometimes, the impossible is just impossible."
"It's not impossible," Hazō said. "It's not like drawing a square circle or something like that. Jiraiya is out there in another Path, and we have a rift to that Path that's currently too small for us to pass through. We can get him back. It's just a matter of execution."
Fukasaku rolled his eyes. "Like she said, we've been around for centuries, boy. Plenty of humans say fool things like that, then go off to die in unsavory ways. But… you did make this three-dimensional seal. So, you know what? I'll hold off on the judgment. Let's see what you can actually do."
"The Human Path is a pain," Shima said. "And we're busy killing those pesky Dragons for now. But once that's wrapped up, you should pop by our place in Toad every once in a while if there's anything we can help you with."
"There is something you could help me with now," Hazō said. "I intend to continue pursuing lithosealing. I'll need to if I want to repair the Great Seal eventually. But to do that, I'll probably need to infuse a rune on the Seventh Path. I know Jiraiya infused seals on the Seventh Path. I'll-"
"He did!?" Fukasaku demanded.
"He did," Kei said. "I cannot attest to other potential violations he may have committed, but he indeed infused approximately six dozen seals at the Toad Embassy in Pangolin at the Chūnin Exams two years prior. To my recollection, he infused Goo Bombs, Five Seal Barriers, and Lesser Barrier Formation seals. He infused the seals while he drank his morning coffee."
The Toad Sages glanced between themselves again.
"That overconfident prick," Shima grumbled. "You bring him back, Hazō, and we'll send him right back to the afterlife."
"Regardless of Jiraiya's… flexible interpretation of the rules," Hazō said. "I take it that it's not seal infusion that's dangerous to the Seventh Path, but sealing failures? That is, is it reasonable for me to do the bare-minimum of lithosealing on the Seventh Path to fix the Great Seal? I'll tell you about it before I do, of course."
"Good," Fukasaku said. "You better tell us, if you know what's good for you. We'll tell you when and where to do it to deal the least damage."
"You're right that sealing failures would be catastrophic for the Seventh Path," Shima said. "But even seal infusions aren't exactly the best for it. We don't want to unravel the Seventh Path, but even poking little holes is going to fray the fabric over time, so to speak."
"What's the deal with that, anyway?" Hazō asked. "Where does the Seventh Path come from? Why is it weaker than the other Paths?"
The Toad Sages exchanged another glance.
"Should we tell him?" Shima asked.
"I think we should," Fukasaku said.
"What if he goes off and does some fool thing with the knowledge?" Shima asked.
"Look at the three dimensional seal he made!" Fukasaku said, pointing a bulbous finger at the center of the darkened crater. "He'll go off and do some fool thing no matter what. Do you want him doing his fool things with the confidence of an ignoramus? If he wanted the Seventh Path destroyed, all he'd have needed to do is not pull the damn Conclave together. He's the one human we can trust not to do that, isn't he?"
"Fine," Shima said, turning back to the humans. "Noburi, Pangolin Summoner, Arachnid Summoner, you don't need to hear this. Back to the bunker with you. Hazō, you stay. I'll need your oath that you won't share this knowledge with anyone without me or Pa giving you the okay, got it?"
Hazō looked back at his team and nodded. "I promise," Hazō said, as his teammates backed away. "I'll keep it quiet."
Fukasaku glanced behind Hazō and decided that his teammates had made a satisfactory distance. "Very well. The 'Sage' didn't have the power to make whole new Paths on his own, but he was able to twist and warp space and time pretty well. The Animal Path was pretty wrecked by the Tenfold Abomination, so he pulled off a little chunk of it, made it livable, then put a veil around it to make it into its own Path. That's what we call the Seventh Path today."
The bearded toad put his hands together. Hazō thought he was making hand seals, but instead he clasped one fist inside the opposite hand. "He took the slice of the Animal Path and wrapped it around the Human Path like this. Except they're both really crumply, so the distance between any part of the Human Path and any part of the Seventh Path is actually really small."
"He stitched the Seventh Path to the Human Path," Shima said. "Which makes summoning way easier than going to any other Path – we're basically next-door neighbors, cosmically speaking. Anyway, the 'Sage' did all that a thousand years ago, then left to do his own thing. Since then, the Animal Path has been trying to heal itself, and it's been forming… let's call them tendrils, connecting to the Seventh Path. It's trying to pull the severed part back to reform the whole."
"Everytime the summoning technique is cast, it adds a little stitch to the connection between the Human Path and Seventh Path," Fukasaku said. "So the Animal Path tendrils aren't an issue, and it won't be for a long time. Sealing is like pinching the fabric up tight. That means a lot of things, but the big one is that if one of the stitches that keeps the Seventh Path attached to the Human Path is nearby, you'll probably break it.
"Of course, a sealing failure would be a massive hole in the fabric, but even a regular infusion can stress it. And I bet that infusing one of those guys," Fukasaku said gesturing to the crater again, "would really twist that fabric up. You saw how it was hovering and murmuring and glowing that eerie purple. That doesn't sound like a negligible flaw in reality to me."
"Anyway," Shima said. "That all adds up to say this: don't infuse on the Seventh Path. Its existence isn't natural, as I'm sure you gathered. If you or anyone muffs it up bad enough, either the veil breaks down and we all get dumped into the primordial chaos, or we snap back to the Animal Path with untold death and destruction, and then get to deal with whatever popped out of that nasty wasteland after the Tenfold Abomination got done with it."
"Oh, and you humans would never be able to summon again," Fukasaku said.
"That too."
"Understood," Hazō said slowly. "So, concretely… should I avoid making plans to infuse a rune on the Seventh Path ever?"
Shima grimaced, then shook her head. "My guess is that it's probably better to risk whatever that's going to do to the Path than just let the Dragons run amok. One infusion shouldn't be too bad. Maybe even ten would be fine. But it's one of those things that we won't know is bad until it's really bad, you understand?"
"I get it," Hazō said. "I'll tell you before I even consider something of the sort, but just be aware that my best guess right now is that it'll definitely be necessary to infuse at least one rune."
Fukasaku harrumphed. "Fine. Guess it's not exactly your skin on the line, is it?"
"It's not," Hazō said. "But I still don't want to cause any unnecessary catastrophes. Speaking of which, I met the Kangaroo Summoner, and she suggested something interesting about the Dragons. She thought that the Dragons might be the anchor point of something important, and that's why the Sage sealed them away instead of killing them. Do you think that's likely? If so, is the entire Crusade misguided? It would be awful if it turned out that the Dragons had been kept alive for some critical function, and then we killed them and found out when that critical function failed."
"Anchor point, who can say," Shima said. "But the 'Sage' definitely kept them alive intentionally. If you think leading that Dragon through a fancy spacetime net was something the Sage couldn't do, you're a bit more up your own ass than I thought, boy. It has to be correct that the Sage kept the Dragons alive for some reason. Maybe it'll be a bad idea to kill them, but as best as I can tell, our choices are either kill them, or wait for them to grow stronger and kill us all back. If killing them is going to cause some other problem, I'll choose to deal with the other problem."
"Well, let's not get ahead of ourselves," Fukasaku said. "When we land in Arachnid, we'll take a look with our own eyes and make our own decision. But even with Orochimaru in your corner, I get the impression that the Great Seal is going to take years to sort out. Given what just happened to the Shark Clan, I think we need a faster solution than that."
"I'll ask around on my end as well," Hazō said. "I'll be speaking with one of the Hagoromo tomorrow, a priest of Leaf's loremaster clan. Maybe they'll know something useful."
Shima laughed. "Fat chance."
"Figuring out why the Sage kept the Dragons alive is a problem for us, not you," Fukasaku said. "Speaking of which, we've got to get back to Kamehameha's back. Assuming that's everything you needed from us."
"Ugh, I hate the ocean," Shima said. "And no Path-shattering inventions for the next week, boy! I don't want to find out Kamehameha moved by getting dumped in the salt water. It's bad for my skin. I suppose we'll be seeing you in Arachnid. What a pain. Do come by Toad once this is all sorted out, though, and give me some notice! I'll bake a nice aphid-and-potato pie."
And with that, the two Toad Sages disappeared in twin puffs of gray smoke.
o-o-o
Hagoromo Mikijirō was among the more tolerable of the priests in the repugnant cult that called itself the Hagoromo Clan. He and Hazō had an understanding of sorts. When Hazō was in attendance at the older man's sermons, Hagoromo Mikijirō avoided dwelling on the fouler parts of the Hagoromo's religious canon. In exchange, Hazō continued not to allocate the time and chakra required to drop the entire Hagoromo estate in a sinkhole. It was a mutually beneficial trade, in a way.
Inviting him to tea had been a bit of a struggle at first, since Kagome had categorically refused to have one of the Hagoromo stinkers anywhere near the clan's main house (though he'd reluctantly agreed that Harumitsu was alright). Luckily, despite the season, Hazō had managed to book a time at Moritaka's. Even luckier, they wouldn't even need to sit in the main room with all the various patrons and lovey-dovey couples – with some strings pulled, he'd managed to get a private outdoor courtyard.
As the elaborate tea ceremony put on by the staff came to a close, the two of them finally started on their drinks.
"So, Hagoromo," Hazō said, trying to keep any contempt out of his voice as he said the oh-so-contemptible name. "I wanted to ask you about history. I know your clan prides itself on keeping records of the Sage's wisdom to more fully understand the Will of Fire. Does that extend in general to keeping good histories of the past? I'd like to learn more about the time of the Sage. It's relevant because of the Dragons, an extradimensional threat on the Seventh Path from ancient times."
Hagoromo Mikijirō nodded, doing an excellent job of hiding his own contempt for Hazō behind a slight smile. "Yes, the Hokage himself wrote me a short missive explaining your predicament. Our clan does take pride in our histories, and I am honored you want to learn from us. I reviewed some of the clan archives ahead of today in preparation. What would you like to know?"
"Well, maybe this one is a long shot. Have you ever heard of something called an External?"
Hagoromo cocked his head. "I've heard of the word before, but I assume you mean more than that. No, I don't believe I know of anything special that goes by that name."
"Hm," Hazō said, sipping his tea and casually scrutinizing Hagoromo to try to judge if the man was lying. "Very well. In a couple of situations, I've heard the word 'ninshu' come up before. What exactly does that word mean?"
"Ah, you must have caught it from the old priests' language," Hagoromo said. "It's quite a niche thing that we learn to better understand the ancient records. There's a lot of unusual words there, so I'm not sure why you latched onto that one, but it is an important one.
"Ninshū was among the Sage of the Six Paths' final teachings to mankind. In ancient times, men were totally at the mercy of whatever the world wished to throw at us, whether natural disaster or chakra beast or vengeful nature spirit. The Sage… the Sage had a complicated life, from what we know of it. Where his divine mother sought to keep humanity locked in their state of endless war and strife, the Sage, perhaps due to his human father, wanted peace. Their conflict is the stuff of many reams of epic and scholarship, but what is agreed upon is that after slaying his mother, the Sage took her blood and fashioned it into chakra.
"Chakra was meant to be a tool for peace. It was first meant to help men communicate and bring their spirits together. Have you never wondered how jōnin can project their emotions onto you? It is because of their abundance of chakra, which lets them share the inner workings of their souls with others.
"The Sage of the Six Paths taught his followers this art: the art of opening your soul to another and receiving their soul in turn, and in doing so achieving perfect harmony. This art was called ninshū. For many generations after the Sage's departure, this worked. The leaders of the various clans studied and practiced ninshū and continued the peace that the Sage had fought so long for.
"Yet, it was not meant to be. Certain clans broke from the teachings of the Sage and corrupted their chakra to be used for fighting and for killing. The peaceful followers of the Sage's ninshū teachings could not afford to be slaughtered, so they were forced to learn to use chakra in the same violent ways. Perhaps this was a result of chakra's provenance from a being dedicated to war and strife. Regardless, in time, the true teachings of ninshū were lost, and we are left with our current, limited understanding of chakra's purpose."
"I see," Hazō said. "Yet, despite this teaching, everyone continues to fight and kill each other. Why do you suppose that is?"
"Not everyone remembers the teachings of the Sage," Hagoromo said. "But fighting is not intrinsically evil. The Sage of the Six Paths was a warrior himself, and dedicated much of his life to fighting various evils. His philosophy in the Will of Fire captures when fighting is just. We fight to protect those worth protecting. In this fallen time, far from the Sage's ninshū, this is the purest act we are capable of."
Hazō hummed noncommittally and sipped from his tea again. Hagoromo was long-winded, but at least he didn't seem like he was trying to hide secrets from Hazō. "Well, let's set that aside for now. You said the Sage was a fighter, right? I've heard that he spent a great deal of effort fighting against a beast known as the Tenfold Abomination, alongside a group of companions. Do you know anything about those tales?"
Hagoromo nodded, donning a faint smile. "Of course. Tales of the Sage of the Six Paths and his team have been spread far and wide, though they vary quite a bit between tellings. While it's well known that the Sage allied closely with Uchiha – the founder of the clan whose name has been immortalized – few know that the Sage also worked with Senju. The Sage favored Senju nearly as much as he did Uchiha, and likewise granted Senju a powerful bloodline. Still, after the Sage's departure, the Senju spent many centuries in total solitude, reflecting on the Sage's teachings. They were forgotten in most of the Elemental Nations as a result, until they returned to the world relatively late in the Warring Clans Era. It is why they were the clan with the least corrupted understanding of ninshū, and the clan which produced Hashirama.
"The last of the Sage's companions was his son, who was named Hagoromo. Naturally, we believe he founded our clan, and is the ultimate source of the divine favor we enjoy. We remain studious and dedicated to the Will of Fire to ensure that we always do right by his eternal gaze."
"Senju, Uchiha, and Hagoromo… Only those three?" Hazō asked, ignoring Hagoromo's masturbatory commentary. "I've mostly heard that the Sage had five companions."
"Ah, you've heard the versions where he travels the Paths, picking up a demon from the Naraka, a gaki from Preta, and so on? No, the modern team structure of a sensei and three students has its root with the Sage and his journeying companions. His allies imitated him, their clans continued the tradition, and so it went through the Warring Clans Era until today. While he was called the Sage of the Six Paths, we think it is not literally because he befriended allies from every Path, but because he traveled across them and learned their wisdom. It is the only reason he managed to defeat the Tenfold Abomination, after all."
"And what exactly is that?" Hazō asked. "Again, I've heard about it obliquely in various places, but I've never gotten the full picture."
Hagoromo sighed into his empty teacup. "As before, the stories are varied and conflicting, and we do not know the exact nature of the divine monster. We know from whence it came. In the era prior to the Sage of the Six Paths, the world was ruled by various kami – gods large and small. Some of these kami were simple nature spirits that inhabited slices of the world. Others were ancestor spirits, who gave wisdom and guidance to families and clans. Others still were true gods that lived in ten divine palaces on high and acted in the mortal realm with near-unlimited power.
"Regardless of their habitat, the kami were evil. They were fickle at best, and used their powers to wreak havoc upon the world and lay waste to the lives of men. The nature spirits caused floods and called lightning on those who trespassed. Even the ancestor spirits, whose purpose was to support their families, would not hesitate to kill those who questioned them, and their violent actions against other families slaughtered hundreds in a flash. The ten grand kami were even worse by all measures. Powerful and no less brutal than their compatriots, they raised hosts of men to fight and die for little more than their own amusement.
"The Sage saw this and declared that it would happen no more – that man should be free to live his own destiny, not to have it dictated to him by powers beyond his ken. He fought the kami one by one and slew them, leaving them no longer able to influence the mortal world.
"Though dead, they were not destroyed. Their corpses still held their power and a remnant of their will. Those corpses agglomerated into a being of pure power and hatred, the Tenfold Abomination. Defeating it was the Sage's greatest challenge – and even then, it could not be destroyed, for the hateful power of the ancient kami would merely return again a generation later. Instead, it was sealed away, far from the ability of mortals to influence it, so that the world would never suffer under the kami's tyranny again."
"But the Tenfold Abomination," Hazō said. "What was it like? Do we have any stories of its abilities?"
"It could do everything," Hagoromo said. "It had the power of every nature spirit that ever existed, every binding and release held by a bloodline, even the vast and manifold might of the ten grand kami and the host of gods at their beck and call. Being a union of divine corpses, it was also blessed with a fiendish, animal intelligence that let it use those powers to wreak havoc and destruction. While it hated the Sage most of all, it also despised humanity, and grinded civilization to dust during the times when the Sage and his team were too weakened to continue the engagement. In the era before the Tenfold Abomination, men built great wonders. Even now, we are but a shadow of what we once were."
"If that were the case," Hazō said, raising an eyebrow, "you'd think people would put more effort into building the world back into a state of wonder instead of accepting their fate and living in the shadows. Yet, it seems like everyone else lets the world decay step by step, and I'm the only one that does anything about it."
Hagoromo smiled thinly. "Indeed. I will confess, I have been quite impressed by some of your Uplift projects. Speaking of which, I had a question regarding the Ministry of Agriculture, Reinvigoration, and Infrastructure. I was wondering if the Hagoromo Clan could perhaps help…"
o-o-o
Hazō stepped forward, waving a hand to dispel the summoning mist. Hagoromo had been quite long-winded, so he'd been forced to push this critical meeting to the morning before he started teaching Orochimaru. Kamehameha had finally reached the ocean and set off towards Arachnid, and Kumokōgō needed to know that she'd soon be dealing with a host of irritable and seasick Seventh Path leaders. Apparently, the Turtle King had claimed he would make the journey in three days. Neji, who had made it back to Leaf in one piece, privately confided that he thought the Turtle King was full of bluster, and that it would take more like two weeks.
Hazō had wanted to tell Neji that the Fires of Youth were anything but bluster, but his heart hadn't been in it.
"Has another visitor the Empress," the Arachnid escorting Hazō said. Hazō wondered who it was. Kagome, perhaps, or maybe Orochimaru visiting the Great Seal in advance of his daily lesson.
Hazō stepped into the throne room and stopped dead. Black cloak. Red clouds. A massive, bandage-covered club on his back.
Kisame of the Akatsuki was kneeling and smiling at the Arachnid Empress. He laughed at something and knocked back a cup of tea, and the Arachnid Empress made an improbably precise gesture with her own teacup to mimic the sentiment.
As Hazō entered the room, Kumokōgō dropped her teacup to skitter horizontally across the room. "Hazō greetings, a long time since have met our eight eyes been it has. The Dragon fight against has a new ally come to join. The Shark Summoner is he, and the Crow Clan alliance of brings as well."
Kisame rose and smiled at Hazō with rows upon rows of jagged teeth. He bowed to Hazō, a far deeper bow than any man of his stature needed to give. "Gōketsu Hazō. I've heard so much about you. It's a pleasure to finally meet you."
Hazō bowed, mentally memorizing the words to present the most detailed report he could to Naruto afterwards so he wouldn't get killboxed again. "Likewise. I'm grateful to hear that you've finally turned your attention towards the Dragons."
Kisame's cheer disappeared. "That's my mistake. I'm sorry."
Hazō raised an eyebrow reflexively. He quickly stuffed it back down, reminding himself to never question the S-ranker-with-a-chakra-eating-sword, but Kisame caught the expression.
The man sighed. "The Shark Clan is pretty big and spread out, and while there was a faction that thought the Dragons were a big deal, the main sentiment was that it wasn't our problem. I got your messages. Mori was pretty clear that the Dragons were something important for us to pay attention to, and the Great Seal you mentioned had Sasori pretty worked up – at least when he remembers that it exists. Still, I thought I could deal with other stuff first."
He shook his head, lowering his gaze. "My clan paid the price for my hubris. So many sharks dead. Because I'm an idiot that can't read the writing on the fucking wall.
"Anyway!" he said, looking up and reaching a hand up to the sword on his back, "I'm done with waiting around. I'm going to send these damned Dragons back to Naraka where they belong."
"You don't mean right now," Hazō said. "The Crusade will be here in a week or two, and you can't fight them alone."
"If they have chakra, Samehada will eat them alive," Kisame said with his predator grin. "And I wasn't planning on doing it alone. Itachi will be here soon enough, and if there's anything Samehada and I can't handle, he'll kill it with a look."
"I don't know if that'll be enough," Hazō said. "They might not have chakra at all. They're made of something completely different to normal beings from the Human or Seventh Path, and the Sage managed to seal them away, which you can't do with things that contain chakra. As for Itachi… well, two of them literally can't be looked at, one can be looked at but not perceived, one more subverts your mind if you look at it, and the last has such a huge reach that if it's in your visual range, you're in its threat range."
Was Kisame's smile looking a little strained? "I see," the Shark Summoner said.
"Makōmalika aid apart from, to fight agreed has the summoner the Crusade alongside," Kumokōgō added helpfully.
"Look, they're dangerous," Hazō said. "If you want them dead, you should wait a week for the Crusade to arrive."
"Arriving is excellent news that the Crusade it is!" Kumokōgō said. "Rid of my land the threat's Dragons, this day I awaited long have."
"I suppose after my months of ignorance, a week won't hurt too much now that the Dragons are back at their butte," Kisame said, after a second. He bowed to Kumokōgō. "I'll be back tomorrow to get what intelligence you have on the Dragons. I'll introduce you to the Crow Summoner when he arrives. Until then, I'll leave you two to discuss whatever you need to about the Crusade. Empress. Gōketsu."
He disappeared in a puff of pale-blue mist.
Hagoromo Mikijirō proposes sending a Hagoromo priest to villages aided by the Ministry to help spread literacy and the teachings of the Will of Fire to all those who want to learn it. Hazō will reject this by default, as the Nara Future Foundation partially fills this niche.
This update lasted 3 days. Hazō, Noburi, and Kei (and the entirety of Clan Gōketsu, if they followed Hazō's orders) have finished their first round of the Akimichi Chakra Enhancement. Unless you vote to the contrary, they will immediately start their second round, to finish on April 27 of the next in-character year.
Several training plans were recently voted in that had the player characters learn dozens of ninjutsu. All ninjutsu that could be feasibly learned will be added to their character sheets, but this took some narrative time – Hazō, Noburi, and Kei spent their Prime hours during this update doing only this.
Reo has gladly accepted Orochimaru's notes on technique hacking, and says he will study them diligently.
On reflection, Mari wants to wait to execute the dramatic backstab of the Hyūga until the clan's finances are set in order again. With the clan currently vulnerable to economic warfare, she doesn't want to piss off the clan with the greatest ability to bring the Gōketsu to ruin. She'll start putting requests out on the Minami's jutsu trading cabal in exchange for Orochimaru's Sundance and Bleeding River Impalement, but even if relations with the Minami are sufficiently improved, she warns you that the throughput isn't super high – usually one or two trades per month total. Clans are stingy.
Mari generally convinces other people to deal with the admin, rather than do it herself. She'll get Reo up-to-date on the ninja operations of the Gōketsu clan, but Gaku's really the one to talk to for most of the nitty-gritty. Reo has been immediately pulled away from his study to start shadowing Gaku around.
Hazō does three days worth of sealing research.
Difficulty check on Noburi's barrel seals: Jiraiya. Noburi shrugs and says that they're not really seals, but a special and weird bloodline thing.
Difficulty check on Improved Strobelight Seals: Disappointingly, also Jiraiya. Hazō thinks he's trying to cram too much stuff into the package. Importantly, limiting the seal output to a single color diminishes the brightness pretty substantially, and then jacking up the brightness several orders of magnitude seems like it's too much for the seal design to handle (see: Macerators not being infinitely improve-able). If he picked one of (+color, ++brightness), he thinks this would be much easier to handle.
Hazō spent a day thinking about time-related runes. He thinks he could try to do some sort of time related rune or another, but he didn't end up coming up with anything concrete. If you want him to check something specific, you need to put that in a plan.
Day 1 of teaching Orochimaru lithosealing, April 5
Hazō had planned to send a shadow clone into Orochimaru's Basement to teach him the lost sealing art from the Sage's era. Now that he was the shadow clone, he was having second thoughts. On the one hand, he certainly felt far less apprehension about the Basement than any other Leaf ninja would have. He'd entered the Basement a half-dozen times in his Prime body, even in the presence of the place's master, and emerged unharmed each time. On the other hand… the Basement had an air of vile evil that still made him wary.
Still, Hazō needed to keep Orochimaru entertained until the older man delivered on his end of the deal. So, descend he would.
Hazō SnakeCharmer walked through the gates of his former home and down the simple gravel path (which had been a stone path until Tsunade had redecorated it with her explosive pellets) towards the main house. He knocked on the door he had once seen visitors through, and stepped back as it swung open of its own accord.
Hazō stepped into the entrance hall. A door on the side of the hall swung open and Orochimaru stepped in, wearing ordinary lounging clothes rather than his lab coat.
Hazō bowed, absently noticing that the door that Orochimaru had come through wasn't one with Basement access. "Hello, Lord Orochimaru. I have come for the first of your lessons in lithosealing."
"You are punctual," he said, as he stalked towards where Hazō waited on the entry mat. He stopped two paces away, and Hazō realized they were nearly the same height. "First, you will reproduce several of your 'runes'. I have prepared locations for you to produce one of each magnitude of explosive. Do you have everything you need to do so?"
"The substrate I need is on the Seventh Path," Hazō said reflexively, realizing that, as a shadow clone, he wouldn't be able to retrieve it himself. "And I don't have the chakra to create the blank with Earthshaping – the technique is expensive and my reserves are nearly empty."
"You are a shadow clone, then," Orochimaru said, after a half-second of thought. "Still, insufficient chakra is no excuse for you. Go retrieve your materials, then find your brother and have him restore your chakra reserves. Return here at noon. As you are a research sealmaster, I assume your shadow clone duration is sufficient to last until the end of the day."
Hazō nodded. "That is correct, Lord Orochimaru."
"Then go," Orochimaru said. "In the future, I expect you will arrive with all requisite materials and chakra."
Hazō bowed. It was only on his walk out of the estate that he realized that in order to retrieve substrate from the Seventh Path, Prime would need to pop all his shadow clones across Leaf.
Well, Prime had been eager to pass off his problems to his shadow clones. Time for Prime to get a problem of his own for once.
o-o-o
Day 3 of teaching Orochimaru lithosealing, April 7
Having created all three of the rune designs he knew, Hazō SnakeCharmer didn't know what Orochimaru would demand next. While Hazō had slipped oblique references to the lesson plans he'd drawn up, Orochimaru had been remarkably uninterested in the personal tutorship of the only lithosealer (lithosealmaster?) on the Path compared to additional runes to study. Perhaps he would demand that Hazō research additional runes to expand Orochimaru's reference library? Maybe the cost of sharing his research with the Snake Sannin would be less than getting to research as far from Akatsuki's interference as was possible in Leaf.
Hazō re-entered Orochimaru's mansion and bowed to the exactingly punctual Sannin.
"Are your reserves full?" Orochimaru asked.
"Yes," Hazō said. His politician training had made him want to fluff every answer or hedge his responses, but Orochimaru seemed to prefer the most concise answers possible.
"Good," Orochimaru said. "I suggest we analyze the runes you have created. You will make two shadow clones, and describe the function of the runes in parallel. Whatever I learn today, I will synthesize overnight, and I will present my understanding tomorrow for you to correct. Do you see a different lesson schedule that would lead to faster learning that the one I describe?"
"I…" Hazō said, trailing off. "You would learn rapidly like that, yes. However, I can't spend that many clone-hours instructing you, Lord Orochimaru. I won't be able to handle the reintegration shock from two additional day-long shadow clones."
"You use shadow clones extensively for your own seal research," Orochimaru said.
"Yes."
"In their absence, would you survive reintegration shock for two day-long clones?"
It was a dangerous leak of his own capabilities, but could Hazō refuse to answer? "Yes."
"Then I see no problem," Orochimaru said dismissively. "Make three clones, dispel one to let your other clones know they must dispel, then continue. Let us stop dallying. Come, to the study rooms." Orochimaru turned away.
This was a crux point. If Hazō didn't push back now, Orochimaru would doubtless claim every minute of every Hazō's day if he could. Did he dare push back against Orochimaru before the Sannin delivered his end of the deal?
"Apologies, Lord Orochimaru," Hazō said. "I don't believe I was clear. My clones' other activities cannot be delayed. I can only spend time in this body instructing you."
Orochimaru turned back to face Hazō. "No. Your personal affairs do not interest me, boy. I dealt with you expecting that you would provide the best tutorship you are capable of, and I do not wish to be proven wrong. You may go and confer with your other bodies if you must, but you will provide three shadow clones for today's session."
"You are correct that I intend to tutor you to the best of my abilities," Hazō said. "Except where you choose to override that in order to have me do something else – such as the last two days I spent making runes for you. However, we did not agree that I would spend all my time teaching you."
Surprisingly, Orochimaru didn't take any movements towards Hazō, or even change his body language beyond his relaxed, casual pose. "We did not pin down the exact specifics of the deal because I was dealing with you in good faith, boy. You cannot explore three-dimensional sealing to full satisfaction without a renewable source of chakra-conductive stone, and me providing the Bones of Creation technique alone would have been a more than fair trade – I unlock your potential, you accelerate mine. Instead, I also intend to provide you with a dozen ninjutsu and seals, some of which are among the strongest of their sort in the Elemental Nations, invaluable information on Akatsuki, and more besides. I will provide these in the expectation that you return my good faith. Now do so and stop wasting my time."
Hazō suppressed a wince with only his willpower. "I understand your perspective, Lord Orochimaru, but I cannot give you any more time than I am giving you. I did not deal with you in bad faith – I intend to teach you to the best of my ability. Just allow me to do so."
Orochimaru considered Hazō for several seconds. Hazō clamped down on his nervousness. Orochimaru could take the runes Hazō had created and leave Hazō out to dry.
"Fine," Orochimaru said. "I do not intend to renege now that you have already provided a substantial amount of value, and I would be foolish to spurn your aid altogether. Come now, do not waste my time any further. Provided you are limited to a single body, what lesson schedule would optimize my rate of learning?"
"Well," Hazō said, keeping the relief off his face, "I've given the matter a lot of thought. I think we should start with…"
o-o-o
Day 5 of teaching Orochimaru lithosealing, April 9
"So," Orochimaru said, frowning ever-so-slightly. "The chakra flow through this component here should spiral counterclockwise, celestine, and white, causing a resonance through these two components here?"
"Incorrect," Hazō said. "Correct in isolation, but the component is under a lot of interference. Specifically, what's the primary localization of this cage here?"
Orochimaru's slight frown deepened. "I recall you saying it was chthonic, but that is pure memory, not understanding."
"Correct," Hazō said, pointing again to the helix-curve in the full-size explosive rune he'd constructed. "So, what are the characteristics of the flow through this component?"
Orochimaru thought for several seconds. "Counterclockwise, chthonic, and sky-blue. And the associated resonances would be here, here and here."
Hazō shook his head. "Incorrect. Actually-"
Orochimaru raised his hand to pause, then closed his eyes. Hazō waited half a minute while the older man considered.
Finally, he reopened his eyes. "This is not going to be fruitful. Let us take a step back. Why is the cage chthonically localized?"
After several more minutes of explanation, Orochimaru sighed softly. "I see. I think I do, that is, but I don't think I will truly understand for certain until I am actually able to feel the chakra flow with my own senses."
Hazō nodded. "It was the same for me. I could make up theories, but until I figured out a way to actually control the chakra flow in three dimensions, actually understanding what the components were doing and why was beyond my grasp."
Orochimaru nodded, but didn't respond. He glanced to the side, looking pensive. After a moment more of thought, he spoke. "I have had many teachers in my time. Some, when they find their first explanation does not make sense to their pupil, seem to believe that repeating the same explanation louder is a satisfactory form of education. It is to your credit that you instinctively rephrase and analyze the truth from several angles. I am no dullard student, but it is still immensely helpful when you give several explanations of a component's function – whether that be satisfying an equation, meeting constraints, or optimizing a metric. Please continue in this fashion, wherever possible."
Hazō SnakeCharmer avoided raising an eyebrow at Orochimaru's compliment. "Understood. Are you prepared to continue?"
At that, Orochimaru gave the faintest of smiles. "I have not paid for your time for idle chatter. Apologies for my lack of focus. Continue. So, are there general rules I should consider for judging the interaction between localizations?"
o-o-o
Day 7 of teaching Orochimaru lithosealing, April 11
"And finally, this spike vents excess chakra out of the supporting matrix, where it will not produce any undesired interactions or resonances within the seal. Correct?"
"Correct," Hazō said. "With my chakra's attributes, of course. Yours will be different. The spike is a very simple component. I think you should try to reproduce it."
Orochimaru sighed. "It will be futile, I suspect, but very well. Earth Element: Bones of Creation."
Orochimaru made thirteen slow, deliberate hand-seals to cast the Sannin's variant version of Earthshaping. Hazō watched as Orochimaru's eyes fluttered shut and the older man sank into the trance that Hazō knew so well. Orochimaru's technique had more differences from its original than the increased number of hand-seals. It required greater focus to affect a smaller area than Earthshaping, and it gave Orochimaru far less control over the stone – and not just because of the Sannin's weaker grasp on the technique. Orochimaru seemed to be unable to feel the stone, instead solely focusing on its capacity to conduct chakra for lithosealing.
A wide-based stone spike slowly emerged from the prepared brick of quartz. It seemed perfect at first – crystal clear all the way through and lacking any internal inclusion or imperfection.
Orochimaru finished extruding the spike, then twisted its base into a stabilizing spiral that roughly matched the shape of the analogous component in Hazō's puffer-explosive rune. He slowly opened his eyes and pinched the spiral off of the brick of quartz, then closed them again to pull his chakra back out of the stone.
Several minutes later, Orochimaru's eyes opened again. He wordlessly handed the spike to Hazō.
Hazō placed his hand on the far end of the spiral and pushed chakra through the stone. As expected, it was conductive, but wrong. His chakra didn't flow through it in smooth, unwavering curves like it did through the stone from the cave in Honey. It was turbulent instead, and twisted and turned on itself, forming eddies and whorls and ejecting itself out of the sides before it could reach the tip of the spike.
Hazō shook his head. "This won't work. The conductive channels are imperfect. Infusing it would cause a failure."
"I'm aware," Orochimaru said dryly. "The last twelve times we did this has given me enough evidence to guess. What am I to do about it?"
"If you could use the crystal substrate, which already has well-aligned channels, you wouldn't have any difficulty and we could start working on real lithosealing."
Orochimaru frowned. "The substrate method you use is clearly inefficient. The Great Seal alone should be proof enough that this is not an optimal route to lithosealing. Its resonances happen in the open air, rather than in a diffusion-safe matrix."
"Yes, I cannot directly extrude conductive crystal into any shape I want," Hazō said. "But the substrate-embedding method is sufficiently functional for lithosealing."
"It's hacky," Orochimaru said. "Earthshaping may permit you to effectively use such methods, but I have no desire to do so. I am confident that greater skill in the Bones of Creation technique will let me directly form chakra-conductive channels into any shapes I desire. I believe the only limitation is that, unlike your years of experience with Earthshaping, I have spent only two months with this technique."
"And how much longer will it take you?" Hazō asked.
Orochimaru narrowed his eyes. "No, you are right. While I have your time, I should not split my focus. If my insufficient skill in the Bones of Creation technique is the limiter, I should resolve the limiter immediately."
Orochimaru turned away from Hazō, gazing through the Basement's walls.
"Your brother sells chakra refills for jōnin performing important training, correct?"
Hazō didn't like where this was going. "Correct, Lord Orochimaru."
Orochimaru nodded. "As he is apparently quite the coward, I shall meet him at a location that will ease his worries. Will the gates of your compound work?"
"Do you want to buy chakra from him?" Hazō asked.
"Obviously."
"How much do you need?"
"As much as he can provide." Orochimaru said. "I suppose a full barrel will suffice. I will not waste time waiting for two dozen tardy genin to arrive and be drained."
Hazō couldn't credibly claim that Orochimaru's training wasn't important – not when Hazō was the one training Orochimaru. With how much Hazō had emphasized the war against the Dragons, he didn't even think he could get Naruto to stop Orochimaru's request. But if Orochimaru intended to train with shadow clones…
"If I may ask, what will you use the chakra on?"
"Summoning Manda thrice over," Orochimaru said. "You're not a fool, nephew. I will use it to train Bones of Creation with shadow clones."
"And regarding the operational security of the shadow clone technique…"
"I will not cast the technique in public and in doing so advertise to all watchers that my reserves are momentarily low, obviously," Orochimaru said impatiently. "I will pay double the going rate for this service. You may instruct any ninja who finds their training disrupted to take up their grievance with me. Do you expect I would need to speak with the Tower to ensure that I can make this purchase?"
"I don't believe so…" Hazō said.
"I shall have Kabuto send a message anyway. And I will obviously obscure the details. Have your brother meet me at the gates of your compound tomorrow at dawn, and every morning thereafter."
"Understood, Lord Orochimaru."
o-o-o
Midday on day 8 of teaching Orochimaru lithosealing, April 12
"Hey bro, all good?"
"Yeah," Noburi said, as Hazō stepped through the door. Orochimaru would now be locked in a lesson with Hazō SnakeCharmer, but Hazō Prime could take a break from copying the Fourth Hokage's various notes to see how his brother had managed his brief encounter with the Sannin.
"What was it like?"
"I mean, he didn't waste any time," Noburi said. "He arrived exactly as the sun cracked the horizon, handed over an account draft that I think Gaku is going to be very happy to cash, drank my water, and left."
"How much chakra did he have?" Hazō asked.
"He didn't need me to refill him at the assault on the Rock base," Noburi said. "But he didn't do as much summoning as everyone else, probably because he was saving his chakra to summon Manda. He let me feel it this time. He didn't have much at all – barely a fresh genin's worth."
"And how much did he drink?"
"My whole reserves," Noburi said. "He told me to give him all of it, so I did. He downed it, thanked me, and left."
Noburi had a lot of chakra in his barrel – easily four or five jōnin's worth. Apparently, Orochimaru's coils were on a different level.
"He's a monster," Hazō said in awe.
"Yeah."
o-o-o
Day 15 of teaching Orochimaru lithosealing, April 19
Orochimaru didn't waste time with greetings. Instead, he wordlessly led Hazō into the Basement (now oddly devoid of moans of misery or unsavory scents) and to an upper-level room. It was not one of the steel-lined rooms he'd prepared for Hazō's various explosive runes. This one seemed like a simple meditation cave – a cuboid hole in the wall with a small mat for kneeling and an unlit censer. As with many of the rooms Hazō saw, there was a pile of clear quartz shards in the corner.
Orochimaru picked one up and handed it to Hazō. Hazō pushed his chakra through it. It flowed through flawlessly, without the faintest bump of turbulence.
"It… works," Hazō said. "It conducts chakra. This is valid substrate. You could make a rune out of this."
Orochimaru smiled wide, lips pressed together. "Excellent. Finally, we can begin."
o-o-o
Day 21 of teaching Orochimaru lithosealing, April 25
"And as we scale up the size of the rune, we need to construct additional pylons to support the increased magnitude of chakra flow through this primary channel. Because of the flow's magnitude, I keep the channel straight and even to minimize feedback, but studying the Great Seal makes me think that higher levels of lithosealing–"
Orochimaru raised his hand to interrupt.
"You made no mistake in your explanation," Orochimaru said. "My complaint is unrelated. Your nomenclature is incomprehensible."
"Can you clarify?"
"You named the art, did you not? You made the decision that the act that one performs is called lithosealing, but the resultant object is called a rune."
"Correct," Hazō said.
"I have seen fields where such things have happened. In the study of the human body, a group of doctors described the function of an organ as loriating, but while they described the excreta as loriate at first, they eventually adopted procedures from another medical researcher that called said excreta risole, and consistent communication requirements eventually led them to have a separate word for the organ's function and the result of that function.
"Never have I seen someone discover a new field, then choose to name it in different, incompatible ways. As a historical quirk, the runes/lithosealing nomenclature is perhaps forgivable. As a voluntary choice, it is not."
"I see," Hazō said. "And what do you expect me to do about it?"
"Select a better name," Orochimaru said simply. "As the art's original creators are dead, you have the right to name it, but you must pick more sensibly. Sealing produces seals. Biosealing produces bioseals. Seal inscription produces inscribed seals. I do not care if you decide that lithosealing produces lithoseals, or runecrafting produces runes, or even Hazōsealing produces Hazōseals. But the current name is unacceptable, and I will select something of my own invention if you do not."
"Can I have some time to consider it?" Hazō said. "I'd like to pick the name carefully."
"It is not something that will matter beyond you and I, but I also will not have this irritating me for untold years," Orochimaru said. "So long as you select a reasonable, consistent name, I will not complain further about nomenclature. Apologies for the interruption. Please continue what you were saying about the primary chakra channels."
o-o-o
Midday during Day 25 of teaching Orochimaru lithosealing, April 29
"Lord Orochimaru," Mari said, bowing to the Sannin. Hazō bowed in sync. Orochimaru had been harmless to Hazō so far, but Mari wanted to take every precaution possible against accidentally irritating the easily-irritable demigod, and that included following every rule of etiquette Mari had memorized.
Orochimaru nodded to let them stand again and looked Mari in the eyes. "Gōketsu Mari. The redhead."
"Yes, Lord Orochimaru," Mari said, meeting his gaze for a couple seconds, then looking down at his feet.
"You are to learn four techniques. Whirlwind Barrier will be the most challenging to learn quickly, but Strength of the Storm is also nontrivial. Assuming you can learn Whirlwind Barrier, the two Cloak techniques will be simple. I expect you will learn quickly."
"I will learn quickly, Lord Orochimaru. Shadow Clone Technique!"
The thin mist cleared to reveal four Maris instead of one. Mari quickly passed readied water bottles to her newly-created clones.
Orochimaru frowned slightly. "I did not think they gave that technique out so freely. Still, I suppose this will minimize the time required. You three may spread out to whatever range is comfortable," he said, gesturing around the clones. He pointed at one. "You will begin with Whirlwind Barrier. Here are the handseals: Bird, Ram, Dog…"
Orochimaru quickly circled the clearing, giving each Mari a brief run-down on the handseals and chakra manipulations required for each technique. He did two more rounds, efficiently asking questions about how Mari's chakra felt and setting her on the correct practice path before he finally came back to Hazō's side.
Orochimaru looked over the Maris and nodded slightly. "She will suffice. You've already received the seals I provided and their corresponding research notes. You may of course learn Geode Coffin and Bones of Creation from me at any point, and I shall leave up to you how you wish to convince your brother to remain in close contact with me to learn the combat-relevant medical ninjutsu I have selected. Now, I believe you wished for time to speak with me. You have it, until I am no longer required to correct the redhead's ninjutsu work. You may begin."
"I wanted to ask you some questions that are… perhaps sensitive," Hazō said. "I was hoping we could speak somewhere other than an open training field."
Orochimaru glanced at Hazō, then turned to point into the woods. "The nearest humans outside of this clearing are farmers, three-quarters of a mile in that direction."
"I'd still rather take additional precautions," Hazō said.
Orochimaru pursed his lips. "Very well," he said. "I will need to fetch my seals."
Ten minutes later, Orochimaru set an array of dozens of seals in a large ring (worryingly, keeping each seal face-down) and activated them, causing the woods to fade to large, fuzzy shapes accompanied by only a quiet buzz.
"This barrier will be more than sufficient," Orochimaru said. "Begin."
"I don't suppose I could interest you in some tea and snacks while we speak?" Hazō asked.
"You could not," Orochimaru said.
"Right. So, you've heard that the Crusade is well underway, right?"
"How could I have missed it?" Orochimaru asked. "Manda understands well how to complain, and Snake has been restless without its leader. I suspect everywhere deprived of their Boss will be much the same."
"Thankfully, Cannai is quite even-tempered," Hazō said. "For having made three runs through Hyena just to take a trip on Turtleback, he's in excellent spirits. Still, it's for the few Clan Bosses I like that I ask – did you derive any useful tactical insights from studying the Dragon parts I sold you? The Crusade would make good use of it, I think. I wouldn't want the more useful bosses to die, and I'm sure you feel much the same."
"Of course," Orochimaru said, looking at Hazō strangely. "For all their various irritations, I do not want to see my summon clan destroyed much more than you do. I obviously intend to share the relevant parts of my findings with the Crusade once they arrive in Arachnid. Or have you forgotten that I have a summon stationed there?"
"How could I forget?" Hazō asked. "I was the one who asked you to send that summon. So that I can help, maybe by making an appropriate seal, what findings are relevant?"
Orochimaru inclined his head, and Hazō started to feel slightly uncomfortable. They were standing and facing each other in Orochimaru's privacy bubble. Without shared food or a game, or even an area to pace around, it was hard to make the conversation feel natural.
"Little relevant to the fight," Orochimaru said. "The primary finding is related to the exotic matter the Dragons are made of. They are… Hm, how shall I say this? A Fire Element ninjutsu has superiority over a Wind Element ninjutsu, which means that when a fireball meets a wind barrier, the wind barrier's structure is destroyed by interaction with the fireball, allowing the fireball to continue. In the same way, I hypothesize that the Dragons' bodies have superiority over ordinary matter from the Seventh or Human Paths. The specific properties of the Dragons will not be similar to the samples in my possession, but if this general trait holds, the Clan Bosses that fight with tooth and claw will struggle to inflict lethal damage.
"Of course, I've created a seal that should create a 'shell' around a claw or talon that is not inferior to the Dragon's body material. If a Clan Boss does not have adequate ninjutsu to fight with, this should enable them to inflict some damage.
"Naturally, none but Manda will accept an enhancement that augments their bodies to be considerably more resistant to the Dragons' attacks. Regrettable for them."
"Is that theory compatible with the Dragon being killed by a skyslicer?" Hazō asked.
"Obviously," Orochimaru said. "I would have discarded it otherwise. It is hard to imagine a substance that can be meaningfully called matter that wouldn't be destroyed by a powerful spacetime effect."
"And I suppose we'll have more than just the Clan Bosses…" Hazō mused. "I'm not sure if you heard, but Kisame and Itachi are coming to Arachnid to fight the Dragons."
Orochimaru raised an eyebrow. "Is that so? And here I expected they would do nothing useful with their unearned second lives. The information is appreciated. I will briefly go and check on the redhead's progress. I expect I will not see any of my seals disturbed when I return."
With that, Orochimaru faded through the shimmering barrier out into the training field.
Hazō took the opportunity to think. He didn't want this to be a scattershot list of questions like the one that had clearly irritated Orochimaru so much during the dissection of Noda. He needed to make the atmosphere more comfortable… Except Orochimaru was in business-mode while he was teaching Mari the various techniques he'd promised the Gōketsu, and that meant that Orochimaru probably wouldn't get fully engaged in a conversation.
Maybe he'd have a better chance when he learned Bones of Creation and Geode Coffin with Orochimaru alone. Until then, he could try to fix the problem with the Gōketsu Clan's second-most useful tool: storage seals.
Orochimaru returned to the blurry, muted bubble to see Hazō reclining in a comfortable armchair in front of a short table on a plush rug. Another armchair was set out opposite Hazō, this one stuffed to match the couches around Orochimaru's house as closely as Hazō could remember.
Orochimaru glanced around to ensure his privacy seals hadn't been disturbed, then took his seat at a leisurely pace.
"I suppose my latest set of instructions should keep her entertained for fifteen minutes longer. It's clear you intend this to be a longer conversation than I'd been expecting. I expect you will not bore me."
"Judge for yourself, Lord Orochimaru," Hazō said. "You've clearly taken a great interest in the Dragons. But do you know what they truly are? The Toad Sages refer to them as Externals, like the Tenfold Abomination – which is quite an interesting term. I have to wonder what the implication is. Are they external to the veil of the Paths? Or, perhaps, could they be external to the Outer Path itself?"
Orochimaru blinked. "The Outer Path? Where in the world did you hear that name?" He shook his head. "No, I'm being foolish. Pain's resurrection technique. You read the report and remembered it, and are now chaining words together in the hope that they make sense."
As a matter of fact, Itachi had also used those same words to probe Hazō's forbidden knowledge as well, but he didn't think Orochimaru would think much more highly of Hazō for repeating Itachi's words instead of Pain's.
"I've heard of it mentioned in other places as well," Hazō said. "But I confess I don't know what it is. Would you care to enlighten me?"
"No, I would not," Orochimaru said. "Such things are meant for those with the courage to find them, not for administrators and clerks who sit on their rears in comfortable cities, asking questions and compiling answers for their superiors to peruse. I recognize you requested I refrain from 'condescending brushoffs', so if you can explain to me why you would need this information, I will provide it. Our deal does not mandate me to answer unreasonable questions. In the absence of an explanation on your behalf, I declare this to be one such."
'To fix the Great Seal' probably wasn't going to fly with Orochimaru, who clearly intended to fix the Great Seal himself. Hazō kept quiet.
"I expected this time to be more… productive," Orochimaru said. "Perhaps that you would ask me which sources of power you ought to be pursuing to maximize your personal growth, or perhaps which lessons I have found most valuable in my career as a ninja or as a researcher. Instead, you ask pointless questions about topics you do not understand."
"Fine," Hazō said. "What sources of power should I be pursuing right now?"
"Lithosealing," Orochimaru said without hesitation. "A unique source of power gives you more tools than any widely known source. Were it several months ago, I would recommend biosealing instead. You are clearly a competent researcher, and have some understanding of how to effectively use shadow clones to improve your research output, and you would benefit from being… less crippled by your injuries. Your sealing background will cover many sins in the pursuit of the art.
"Lastly, most would not call it a meaningful source of power, but if you wish to be strong, you should fight far more than you do. A large contributor to my team's strength was the amount of missions we took. In the year prior to the second world war, we likely killed a hundred enemy ninja, and in the war, there were weeks on end where I would kill a dozen a week by my own hands alone. This is not to glorify killing like that fool Hidan. No, it's just an observation that for all that our Scrolls and ninjutsu aided us, it was the crucible of war that granted us an edge that nearly no other ninja have.
"Of course, I am certain that you will say that you do not care for combat power, and you would rather be an excellent researcher first and foremost. Certainly, you will be able to turn your seals into power eventually, perhaps especially with lithosealing. But I nonetheless believe there will be a cost. I care little for additional combat capacity these days in truth, yet I do not believe I would have achieved my excellence as a researcher without the depth of understanding of the world that came from exploring its many corners, seeing its many techniques, and killing its many inhabitants."
"Honestly," Hazō said after a moment, "that's entirely reasonable advice. I don't know if I can fight nearly as much as you and Jiraiya and Tsunade did with AMITY around. Still… no offense, sir, but the interesting locations you highlighted to me were all random spots of nature, not places where I would discover hidden lore about how the Paths really work. Not that I'm complaining about what you've given me, but how would I find such secrets?"
"Must I spell it out?" Orochimaru asked. "Here, an example. You asked questions about Jashin in our previous conversation. Do you wish to learn more about the creature? Go and raid a Jashinist temple; if Hidan has been reasonably productive, there should be plenty. Bring a Yamanaka if you're feeling ambitious. Is that sufficient?"
"And are there cultists of the Outer Path out there?" Hazō asked.
"You cannot provide a reason why you need this information, and if you want it, you will earn it yourself. I consider further discussion along these lines unreasonable and beyond the boundaries of our agreement. Next question."
"You never answered my first one. Are Dragons really Externals?"
"Evidence suggests that they do not originate anywhere in the six Paths," Orochimaru said. "And you have evidence enough to conclude that they are not native to the Seventh. However, it does nothing to call them an 'External'. There are many types of beings not native to the six Paths with more differences than similarities, and the Dragons are a relatively comprehensible one.
"As always, premature use of terminology and classifications hide the truth. I will provide you with an observation and let you come to your own conclusions. In the Dragon parts you sold to me, I detected no evidence of any use of chakra. In contrast, a marked feature of the nine Tailed Beasts is their powerful and corrupting chakra."
Hazō inclined his head, thinking through it. "So… the Dragons are probably not native to the Paths. They probably don't have chakra. On the Human Path and on the Seventh Path, all the native beings I know have chakra: humans, chakra beasts, plants, and summons. The Tailed Beasts have chakra. So the Tailed Beasts, and therefore the Tenfold Abomination, are native to the Paths? Assuming that the Tailed Beasts are indeed pieces of the Tenfold Abomination."
Orochimaru neither confirmed nor denied Hazō's hypothesis.
"Hm. The Tenfold Abomination was supposedly unkillable, which is why the Sage split it and sealed it. Whether it and the Tailed Beasts are in the same class of being as the Dragons matters a lot, since if the Dragons simply reformed after we killed them, we would be in quite a lot of trouble when a bunch of angry Dragons pop out of nowhere after the Bosses go home. It really looked like we killed that one. Still, maybe the Sage sealed them because they would just reform like the Tenfold Abomination. In your estimation, will the killed Dragons stay dead, or will they reform or continue to present a threat?"
"A much better question," Orochimaru said approvingly. "I think it is highly unlikely that the Dragons reform over time."
"Then why were they sealed instead of simply killed?"
"I do not know," Orochimaru said. "However, my leading hypothesis is that their corrosive physical nature is paired with a metaphysical corrosion that damages the structure of the Paths quite severely. Of the Dragons killed at Archaeopteryx I found no sign, presumably, based on the tales relayed by the condor, due to the cannibalism of their fellows. Even the Dragon you felled had its body destroyed almost in full, with a scant few pieces excluded due to the spread caused by the Dragon's immense velocity as it passed through the severing field. I believe the Dragons consume the bodies of their fellows as a behavior written into their souls, to prevent their corruption from spreading once unbound from their physical bodies."
"Whatever this corrupting influence is, it can clearly be sealed if the Great Seal is any indicator," Hazō said. "So why leave the Dragons alive, instead of as a pile of toxic sludge?"
"Who can say?" Orochimaru said. "Perhaps, if they were to be sealed anyway, keeping them in their current form preserved their utility as a weapon. Perhaps they are harder to seal as a diffuse cloud of corruption rather than as a single, concrete entity. Regardless, there is a natural conclusion you should infer from this hypothesis."
"If true, the Crusade could be catastrophic," Hazō said. "The bodies of the Dragons would just leak corruption all over the place with none left to consume the others."
"So, perhaps the optimal result from the Crusade is that the most readily controllable Dragon is left alive, while the others are slain and integrated into its being," Orochimaru said. "Regardless, the corruption has been handled before by a rune, so I expect we will handle it again with a rune. This is among the information I intend to present before the Crusade prior to their attack, obviously. Now, I will go and check on the redhead's ninjutsu progress once more."
"Hm…" Hazō said once Orochimaru returned to their bubble of secrecy. "I suppose it feels like the Dragons and the Tailed Beasts are very similar types of beings: big physical monstrosities that you can fight and overpower. Contrast to the Five, which are very much not that. Shards of the Tenfold Abomination's cognition, chained… somehow… to a bloodline, allowing anyone from that bloodline to access the mind without any sort of physical connection. When you compare that to the Dragons and the Tailed Beasts, I think I'd draw the dividing line between the Five and the other two, rather than describing the Tailed Beasts and the Five as both derived from the Tenfold Abomination, and the Dragons as something different.
"Oh," Hazō said before Orochimaru could open his mouth. "And before you bring up my Mori or Nara allies, they really haven't told me anything. Kei was a genin when she left the clan, and I'm sure you know just how unwilling the Nara are to share anything of value. Neither of them divulge anything about the Five. Everything I know about those entities, I scraped together from scattered pieces of lore here and there."
"It appears your knowledge has expanded regardless of the Nara's obstructionism," Orochimaru said. "I am afraid I cannot draw conclusions on your behalf. Still, I will highlight relevant information you already have: the Five clans are generally ordinary chakra users, with a relatively normal bloodline."
"I… don't see what this implies," Hazō said. "I'll think about it more. Really, the reason why I was asking is because of Pain's ritual. He assembled the Tailed Beasts – the body of the Tenfold Abomination – and the stated goal of the ritual was to unite the minds of the ninja world. Among those minds, of course, are the Five clans, supposed shards of the mind of the Tenfold Abomination. If he reunited the Abomination's body and its mind… wouldn't that have the potential to resurrect it in full?"
"Not quite," Orochimaru said, cracking a slight smirk that quickly faded. "Though it is a reasonable conclusion to reach. No, I do not believe anyone is mad enough to attempt the beast's resurrection, and Pain, for all his madness, did ultimately want peace for humanity rather than ruin. His path to peace was monstrous, of course, but it was not the immeasurable suffering that a returned Tenfold Abomination would have promised."
"Hm. Whatever they are, I'm not sure if it's wise for the Five to have such influence on human governance and affairs," Hazō said. "Whether their thoughts are coming from a beast of pure hatred or from a being beyond the Path, I feel like any such knowledge would be tainted. Perhaps we shouldn't let them have so much power."
"Oh?" Orochimaru said. "And which human would you trust to make better decisions? Perhaps another reason to see the world more broadly – you will observe just how tainted human thought in general is.
"Hm. Regardless, I believe I should go and check on the redhead. She has likely grasped the basics of these ninjutsu by now, so I will return to my estate and leave you to your affairs. I shall be seeing your shadow clone shortly."
o-o-o
Day 26 of teaching Orochimaru lithosealing, April 30
Orochimaru was a confusing student. He was absolutely impatient when it came to any dalliance on Hazō's part, yet as their sessions wore on, he became more and more prone to interspersing minor comments about some foolishness or another he perceived in the world. It didn't happen every day, and never twice in a day, but Hazō could detect the pattern.
The man was hungry for knowledge. Unlike Hazō's lessons with Harumitsu, which had been broken up nicely by occasional chit-chatting, breaks for meals, or even just a walk, Orochimaru did not take breaks. If Hazō SnakeCharmer needed to drink or stretch his legs, it would be while continuing their conversation on the intricacies of lithosealing (runecraft?) and how Orochimaru's chakra differed from Hazō's.
For all his impatience, Orochimaru was surprisingly cautious. He'd apparently mastered Bones of Creation days before displaying his completed substrate to Hazō, and had spent the intervening time analyzing the results of his ninjutsu to ensure that it was suitable to the task of conducting chakra.
Then he'd thrown his caution to the wind. Hazō had seen more and more hints of that hunger to have the power Hazō held, until yesterday, suddenly, Orochimaru had decided. He was going to attempt his first runic creation and infusion.
Hazō had checked and double-checked his student's confidence from every angle. He had detected no obvious error in Orochimaru's understanding of the theory.
Hazō had run his student through every exercise he could conceive of to test his control of chakra within the chakra-conductive stone. He had found no fault that would prevent Orochimaru from successfully making a simple explosive.
Hazō had watched as his student created the blank over hours of slow concentration with the Bones of Creation technique, directly extruding clear stone into the shapes dictated by triple-checked design documents. He had checked the blank too, as much as he could check another sealmaster's work and noticed no obvious flaw in the crystalline strokes.
Now, in an anonymous patch of forest a mile out of Leaf, he waited as Orochimaru held his hand to the stone, trying to control his chakra flow sufficiently to lock it into place and complete the infusion. With the crystal-clear stone, Hazō felt like the blank should have pulsed with light as Orochimaru manipulated his chakra within it. The chakra stayed stubbornly invisible.
Minutes ticked by. Orochimaru's face steadily furrowed deeper and deeper into concentration, and Hazō was surprised the man wasn't sweating. He hoped Orochimaru didn't make any mistake. He may have only been here as a shadow clone, but depending on how bad runic failures were, even a mile radius might not be enough to guarantee his Prime body's safety.
Orochimaru was breathing heavier. Was he–
Orochimaru opened his eyes as a faint, deep, rumbling rattle filled the air. The sound accelerated until it was a low thrum, coming from the crystal clear stone that now glowed a nearly-invisible cerulean.
Orochimaru stared at his rune for several long seconds. Hazō could barely breathe.
Orochimaru pulled his hand away, then placed it on a longer loop of stone near the top of the rune. Hazō knew that the older man was feeling the warmth emitted by the rune and the incomprehensible solidity of an object that could barely be moved by even the greatest heights of ninja strength.
"Incredible…" Orochimaru said breathlessly.
Hazō saw a twitch in Orochimaru's face. One in the lip, and another of the eye. Was he going to…
Orochimaru closed his eyes, inhaled deeply and exhaled again. He did it again. And again.
Finally, he opened his eyes.
"I believe that marks my first successful infusion," the Snake Sannin said, before pausing to wipe the faintest smile off his face. "Please inspect my work and describe any errors or places where I could stand to improve."
Orochimaru appears to expect still more tutoring from Hazō. Orochimaru continues to buy chakra from Noburi. Like Mari, Noburi is unnerved by the idea of spending much time up-close with Orochimaru, but is ultimately fine to learn the described combat medical ninjutsu so long as it's not in the Basement.
Kei suggests you reject Mikijirō's plan, on account of not wanting to spread the taint of Hagoromo religious authority any farther than it has already spread.
Naruto is concerned about Itachi and Kisame's presence near the Great Seal. He assumes they will learn that Hazō and Orochimaru have spent a lot of time studying it. He asks if there is anything Hazō can do to minimize the likelihood they discern the existence of lithosealing. He defers to Hazō about what to do about the Crusade, but absent any necessary actions Hazō needs to take, Naruto strongly recommends that Hazō stay away from Arachnid for a couple weeks to avoid drawing attention from Akatsuki.
Hazō does a prep day on the Fast Forward Rune - "Speeds up time by a weak factor in a small radius".
The result of this prep day will be edited in here once the QMs have a chance to discuss.
The door slammed open, almost shattering against the wall. The Reaper crossed the threshold with a blur of shinobi speed, in a direct line to Kei. Its screech was the wailing of a banshee, a lethal lament for the deceased.
"You broke your oath!"
Her demise perhaps imminent but not instant, Kei rose from her desk, took a couple of careful steps past Yuno, then shut the door in the faces of several alarmed KEI shinobi. She retreated to stand by her desk, hypothetically in diving range of the window.
"You swore to protect them, Kei! You swore to Ui, and now they're dead!"
"Yes," Kei acknowledged with such calm as was available to her while within a murderous Satsuko's reach. "I-I do not deny my failure to protect Isan from destruction. I violated my oath and betrayed the trust placed in me." That much was carved into her soul, and a thousand virtuous acts would not sand it back down to innocence.
Yuno had expected something else. Her momentum slowed.
"Then… Then you admit it? You're going to take responsibility for what you've done?"
"Unreservedly," Kei said. "While I perforce cannot simply offer you my head in compensation, by every accepted code of the shinobi world, the sole avenger is entitled to demand a duel to the death."
Yuno listened, bloodshot eyes locked on Kei's. Satsuko did not waver in her raised hands.
"I suggest that we devote the remainder to the day to setting our respective affairs in order. You may wish to speak to members of the family, though note that if you then proceed, they will become accomplices to murder both legally and psychologically. If you remain resolved, we may then reconvene at dawn tomorrow to head to… yes, a suitable place in the Forest of Death occurs to me, sufficiently secluded to avoid witnesses and, coincidentally, well-suited to secure corpse disposal. There, I may expiate my oathbreaking with death, or perhaps survive in the improbable event that Ui chooses to forgive my failure."
Needless to say, Kei would have been a failure as a Nara had she not prepared a contingency for this scenario months ago. She had rehearsed, with Snowflake, equanimity in the face of Yuno's wrath. She had planned every word of her response, with flowcharts. She had confirmed in advance that Yuno's inane culture possessed compatible codes of vengeance, which could deflect her from meting out justice here and now. And, of course, she had trapped her carefully-selected duel site with care and detail to bring a tear to Kagome's eye. Too much lay on Kei's shoulders to ever permit herself the punishment she was due.
Hands folded in front of her, Kei waited. A pro forma attempt would be made, but if Kei's contingency failed, there was no delusion of escaping a blow from Yuno at melee range.
Yuno gritted her teeth, then brought Satsuko down with all the weight of despair.
There is no need to roll dice.
Too late, half a dozen shinobi burst into the office, each with the presence of mind to instantly focus on the blood-spattered, heavily-breathing intruder and not on the shattered remains that were her handiwork.
"Stop!"
Kei tore her gaze away from the desk that could so easily have been her body.
"Th-Thank you for your very reasonable c-concern for my welfare," she stuttered. "Please l-leave us now."
"But Lady Nara!"
"Go!" she snapped.
The shinobi reluctantly filed out, this time through an empty doorway, as an acceleration technique had shattered the door against the wall. Kei absent-mindedly used her sleeve to brush red ink from a broken colour inkwell off her cheek. Days' worth of paperwork, ruined by unsatisfactory planning.
Yuno collapsed to her knees in front of the two halves of the desk.
"I'm sorry," she sobbed. "Ofcourse it wasn't your fault. You didn't know to be there. You're not even allowed. Ui should have made you be there."
Kei nodded silently. That would not have been acceptable, but it would have been… fair.
"No," Yuno said. "That's stupid. I'm stupid. Of course he didn't make you be there when you're so weak. Akio should never have chosen you."
Again, Kei nodded. The scroll should have been bestowed on Mari, whose silver tongue would have seen her with the finest contracts and multiplied her jōnin powers without end.
Then again, Mari would have laughed off any demand to risk her life for persons outside her family; in addition, she would never, ever have ended the skytower trade. No, the ideal way to prevent Isan's destruction would have been to exterminate Team Uplift on arrival and keep the scroll unclaimed, at least while Azai Shūsuke still drew breath.
"I'm sorry," Yuno said, still on her knees." For… For all this."
"Merely more business for the Ishihara workshop," Kei assayed a joke to lighten the mood, now awkwardly off-script. "Snowflake has been lecturing me about wasting opportunities for personalisation."
Dead silence.
"It's gone," Yuno said. "Just gone. My prison of cruelty. My only bastion of civilisation. It's all gone. Just like that. As if it didn't matter. As if I didn't matter."
Kei, the assistant architect of all Yuno's suffering, was not hypocrite enough to attempt words of consolation, even had any come to mind. Instead, after several seconds of intense indecision, she did what Akane probably would have done.
Kneeling down herself, she placed her arms around Yuno, repeating, "Yuno is not a threat Yuno is not a threat Yuno is not a threat" in her mind like a mantra–even as the mortal remains of a desk lay next to them, with Satsuko embedded in the floor.
The mantra stabilised her, like a meditation to distance the pain of medical treatment, and also obscured the passage of time. Eventually, Yuno shrugged her shoulders as if to push Kei away. Kei concealed her relief as she disengaged and they rose to their feet.
"They were supposed to be mine, Kei. Mine to sacrifice to"–Yuno registered Kei's urgent shake of the head just in time–"the Will of Fire like they all deserved. Mine to redeem and teach what Akio and the Companions really meant. Mine to convert to Uplift. Mine to raze to the ground and start again. Killing the High Priest was just… just a down payment for the future I dreamed of. Now it's all gone. I wasted my time dreaming. I wasted my life, and it's too late to go back. I wanted someone to blame to make me feel better, but it should be me, not you. I was too slow, and now I'm never going to make things right."
Kei remained eminently unqualified to suggest how a person might cope healthily with… well, anything.
On the other hand, the Nara believed firmly in effective task allocation. Noburi would see to Yuno's emotional needs. Kei would see to extracting Noburi from the hospital, where he presumably was instead of preventing this incident, for as long as was necessary. His superiors would beg him to take leave if need be.
"Sorry again," Yuno said as she began the slow and laborious task of extracting Satsuko from the floor. "I'm going to… I need to… something. I probably shouldn't be around other people for a while."
Kei was appalling at taking care of others, but even she knew, from extensive personal experience, that this was the opposite of an effective coping strategy. She added a mental note to have Ruri set the ACC to monitor Yuno's location until Noburi could be acquired and dispatched, as a personal favour, lest Yuno's superior stealth and/or wilderness survival skills place her beyond his reach. (Ruri would be delighted to have Kei owe her a favour–she had learned much of the uses of such from Ami. What Kei had learned from her sister, meanwhile, was that few means of building a bond between two people were as reliable as favours owed.)
Kei cast about for a response she had the right to give. "No offence was taken," she finally said. "Please feel free to forget that this incident ever transpired."
Kei must not. First came rescue operations on the paperwork and summoning the cleaning staff to give the desk which had fallen in her place a proper burial. After that, she could head to the facilities and spend some time trembling in privacy, at least as long as was acceptable without inconveniencing others. She had nearly eliminated her sister-in-law for the sake of preserving her personal objectives. It was proof, if any was required, that the girl Akane had once believed capable of stepping into the sunlight was gone. Instead, Nara Kei was only a temporary gap in power and a finite number of uncrossed moral lines away from being a more intelligent, more effective Akatsuki.
"FUCK!" Hazō shouted, hurling the crystal at the nearest blast shield with chakra-boosted strength. It exploded into fragments, scattering in all directions including back onto himself and Kagome-sensei.
"What?!" said the elder sealmaster, leaping to his feet with blast rings extended. (Yes, he wore them while doing the math for his latest seal. Had he not done so, Hazō would have assumed he was an imposter masquerading under an S-rank disguise jutsu. Which, granted, would be a stretch given that such a technique was well-known to be impossible; had it been possible then it would exist, since generations of infiltration specs would have literally twisted the arms of every technique hacker until said unfortunates invented the technique. If only chakra allowed such things!)
"Sorry," Hazō growled, brushing the crystal fragments from his hair. "Bones of Creation can make something that looks like runic substrate, is almost runic substrate, but still has misaligned chakra channels; I was hoping that I could create that, then finish the process with Earthshaping."
"No luck?" asked Kagome-sensei, settling back to his blanket. The ground was wet and chilly with morning dew, and both sealmasters were sitting on blankets and wrapped in more blankets with a hibachi furiously pumping heat nearby.
"No," Hazō said. "Fuck fuck fuckity fuck! I know Bones of Creation can make valid substrate; I've seen Orochimaru do it. I guess I'll have to do it the hard way and actually learn this stupid technique properly instead of barely being able to hold the chakra flows together."
Kagome-sensei grunted in lack of surprise and went back to his work, grumbling about how now he had lost his place and would need to start over.
Hazō had been running his Earthshaping jutsu for an hour now; his anger and distraction had made his connection to the earth shudder and stagger like a drunk, the thread of connection on the edge of snapping and backlashing into him. Long practice allowed him to catch the connection and sink his focus back into the soil.
solid stable enduring
true, but not like this
??
you should be like this
am not
should be
...like so?
yes
...am not
should be. now is not how you should be. should be like this
.........am not?
no. be like this
..............
like so. this is how you should be
....yes
The earth was not sapient, it did not actually speak. The interaction was purely Hazō's interpretation, his mind struggling to place the jutsu's feedback into a frame that a puny human could understand.
Beneath his hands, chunks of dirt formed themselves into something that was almost but not quite runic substrate: clear crystal, internally flawless, denser than any natural crystal could be, and free of the slightest impurity. He tried once again to show the crystal how to align itself so that it could conduct and retain chakra. Once again he failed. The channels formed, suitable for conducting chakra but full of holes such that the energy would puff out the moment a ninja stopped controlling it, rendering any infusion impossible. Yes, it was useful because it allowed one to conduct chakra through the crystals in order to activate seals or use chakra adhesion through the crystal. Unfortunately, it could not yet do what he truly wanted: infuse runes that would allow him to bend reality to his will.
For that matter, it wouldn't even do what he wanted in the mundane world. Experimentation had shown that the crystals, although difficult to scratch, were too brittle to replace metal or even hardwood for most purposes. Hazō's dreams of crystalline claws, infused with the runic power to create invisible blades of force, were for naught. They would shatter the moment he punched anything. (And that was assuming that he could figure out how to make the darn things move!)
Today was a different attempt. Using both chakra and hands, he twisted and twined three pieces of substrate over and under, weaving them into a braid. It was unlikely that such could replace cord or rope, but it was worth trying.
It worked as expected, which was to say not at all. Braided, curved, or straight, the shape made no difference in the strength or ductility of the material.
With a sigh, he broke the substrate down into sand; he wasn't about to leave anything around that someone might attempt to infuse by mistake. He opened the ground beneath the sand, dropping it down a dozen feet, and then smoothed the earth back over it and stood up.
"I need to run," he said to Kagome-sensei. "I've got class in a few minutes."
Kagome-sensei glanced at him, grunted, and went back to what he was doing. "Don't let him put a lupchanz in your ear," he muttered. "Or cut your skull open and turn your brain backwards to make you his loving slave like he did to that Kabuto guy."
"I'll be careful," Hazō said, smiling slightly. "I'll see you tonight?"
Kagome-sensei nodded, not looking up as he waved Hazō off. He was in the middle of some tricky calculations and couldn't afford to be distracted.
o-o-o-o
"Are you certain this is wise?" Snowflake asked, looking dubiously at Hazō's outfit.
Hazō wore his own invention, the CHūnin-level Armaments and Ordinance Sealtech suit, better known as the CHAOS suit. The last time he had worn such a thing was when he had, as part of combat testing, set off a Banshee seal in contact with his body. The resulting vibrations had injured his everything to the extent that Tsunade was nice to him. (Hazō had finally realized that it was possible to infer the extent of one's injuries by how kind and caring Tsunade was as she diagnosed you. If she said "Don't worry, this head injury is barely a bump; you'll be fine, but maybe we'll take you over to the hospital just so the junior doctors can get some practice", it meant that you were bleeding into your brain. If she said "Walk it the fuck off, you slacker" it meant that your broken leg would heal up in a few weeks and you wouldn't have a permanent limp as long as you did your physical therapy consistently.)
The suit was a regular shinobi uniform with pockets covering every square inch. There were a dozen pockets of varying sizes on the chest, the back, the shoulders, and the front and back of all four limbs. About half the pockets had buttons and the rest were made in two parts such that the top part overlapped the bottom and would therefore hold things securely. Things like seals.
Today, all of the pockets were loaded with what Hazō called Rocket Boot seals. No one, including him, knew where he had gotten the word 'Rocket', but it felt right. They were really just Kagome-sensei's directional explosives, stepped down and spread out over time to provide a heavy shove instead of a damaging blast. Put them on your shoes facing up, activate them via chakra adhesion the same way as skywalkers worked, and they would throw you into the air. They allowed a skilled user to leap farther and move faster than the strongest unaided ninja. In combat they could be used to close distance before an enemy could react. Today, Hazō was trying something new.
"Explain to me again why you think this is a good idea?" Snowflake asked.
"It's simple," Hazō said, grinning and completely ignoring the tone of doubt in his sanity-checker's voice. "I put the Rocket Boot seals all over my body, some facing in and some facing out. For example, this one here"—he tapped a seal on his right hip—"is facing in. If I activate it, it will shove me to the side and out of the way of an attack, or let me juke around an enemy faster than they expect I can move. This one here"—he tapped one on the outside of his left bicep—"is facing out. If I activate it, my enemy gets shoved in the face, knocking him off balance."
"Were you to load it with directional explosives, your hypothetical enemy would be killed instead of simply shoved."
"Sure, but maybe I don't want to kill him. Maybe I want to capture him instead."
"How often do you find yourself wanting to capture an enemy ninja?"
"I mean...never, if you take that attitude!" He stuck his tongue out at her. "Besides, that's not all. Check this out." He lifted his foot so that she could see the sole of his combat boots. They were the new Leaf standard model, with slots into which skywalker seals (or, in this case, Rocket Boot seals) could be loaded. "I've got six Rocket Boot seals on this thing, not just one."
Her eyebrows went up. "I thought you had tried this? Chakra adhesion extends too far from the foot, causing all of the seals to activate at once."
"Good memory. Yup, but I'm not going to activate these with chakra adhesion. They're interleaved with MARS seals so I can activate the whole stack in sequence just by activating one trigger."
The Multiple Activation Relay seal was Hazō's crowning achievement as a sealmaster. Derived from the Lesser Barrier Formation seal, MARS was a two-part seal, a trigger and an activator. The activator could be paired to two other seals and when the MARS seal was activated, both paired seals would be activated. If one of those seals was another MARS that was paired to a desired seal and another MARS, it was possible to form long chains of seals and activate all of them at once. Well, almost at once. There was a tiny bit of lag.
The seal had been finicky and annoying to make, but far worse had been the trouble that Hazō had when describing the seal to the family. Every time he tried, someone would say "we already have that. It's called LBF." Hazō would then patiently explain that yes, the Lesser Barrier Formation was a two-part seal that activated two other seals, but the MARS was a significant improvement. Both components of an LBF had to be fixed in place, whereas the MARS seal and its paired seals were free to move around. With LBF, an invisible beam of chakra stretched between the two components and anything crossing the beam would cause the two attached seals to activate. MARS could be activated directly, not by an external event. Hazō had nearly torn his hair out explaining this over and over until he realized that it had become a joke and everyone was simply teasing him.
"Haven't you had issues with that?" Snowflake asked. "You said that the two paired seals are activated at slightly different times and in unpredictable order. The lag stacks up across the chain and sometimes something later in the chain ends up activating before something earlier."
"Yeah, but with only a few seals in the chain it should be fine." He chuckled. "Actually, the real problem is that with only a few seals it activates them all basically at the same time. I want them to go off in sequence, each one pushing me after the one before it has finished. Keep the leap going longer."
She sighed and rubbed the back of her neck. "Very well. I think you're about to find yourself severely injured, but I can tell you won't be talked out of this. Go for it. Just make sure not to pop me."
He gave her a thumbs up and backed up a few yards. "Ready?"
She drew a blunted training kunai and readied herself. "Ready."
"Go!" Hazō immediately flicked a finger into the palm of his right glove, a pulse of chakra activating the MARS trigger that waited there. The seal activated and an instant later the Rocket Boot seal on his left hip shoved him forcefully to the side.
...at which point he caught a foot on the rough ground and went sprawling. Plus, he hadn't moved fast enough to get out of the way of the kunai that had slammed into his chest.
"Ow," Hazō said, climbing to his feet and collecting the training kunai. He walked it back to Snowflake and held it out hilt first.
"The delay in seal activation is too long," she said, taking the weapon. "You would have been better off moving normally."
"True," Hazō said. "Still, it's only the first test. Let's try again."
Snowflake pulled her next kunai, holding one in each hand. Her smile had become predatory. "You asked for it."
The session did not become less painful.
Author's Note: The following part of the plan basically amounts to the players attempting to sneak a modern understanding of aerodynamics into Hazō's brain:
Ask Snowflake/Kei, in consultation with Ōshirō and the skyslider engineers, to design a specialized kunai/shuriken that would better handle the propulsion from Rocket Boot seals.
Scattershot suggestions:
Fatter
Larger
Cone-shaped
Four, equidistant fins
We are interpreting this as Hazō making several dozen suggestions, most of them garbage ideas like "what happens if you use kunai that were forged when there was a big storm? The sky spirits should have been especially strong at that time." These were given in the context of "maybe try shaping it so that it's easier for the spirits to grab onto". The engineers went off to work on it but you shouldn't hold your breath on useful results coming back soon, since they're going to have to work through all the superstitious nonsense as well as these. (Also, these ideas likely aren't enough to do the job on their own.)
XP AWARD: 12 This update covered 3 days. Most of that time passed in the background as you investigated the difficulty of several runes.
The ground around Hazō failed to rise up in a protective crystalline shell the way Orochimaru had promised.
Orochimaru tsked at Hazō. "You did not follow my instructions. Focus. The final handseal requires concentration to shape the chakra correctly. Repeat the basic four steps again."
Several minutes later, once Orochimaru had finished lecturing Hazō NinjutsuMule, he left the underground cave and went to the small operating theater where Hazō LoreExtracter had been waiting.
"Lord Orochimaru," Hazō said, rising from his sitting chair with a bow.
Orochimaru dismissed him with a gesture. "It is your prerogative to direct this time of mine you have purchased, but I expect you will not waste it fetching seals."
"No, this should be fine." If Akatsuki could spy on them this far down in the Basement, Hazō had already lost.
"First, thank you for suggesting I correct my naming conventions," Hazō said. "You had good ideas – instead of lithosealing, let's call the art 'runecrafting', and use 'runes' as the root term for the art of three-dimensional sealing."
Orochimaru sat in the chair opposite Hazō. The center of the room was occupied by a stone blood-stained operating table, complete with adjustable steel restraints for the wrists and ankles that would leave a patient nearly spread-eagle. Thankfully, the table was empty. Despite the room's decor, it only smelled faintly of old herbs.
"A reasonable decision that induces natural derivatives. A three-dimensional bioseal would be called a biorune," Orochimaru said. He then sighed. "I shall discard the names I prepared were you too foolish to select a sensible one. I had considered 'primordial sealing' perhaps, referencing its ancient origins and power."
He considered his words, then backhanded the idea away. "Irrelevant. Your sensible nomenclature is noted."
"Thank you," Hazō said. "Speaking of which – do you plan to investigate biorunes as a field of study? Now that you know the basics of runecrafting, I'm sure that you have lots of ideas you want to research."
Orochimaru raised an eyebrow. "I do not readily disclose my future plans," he said, though he didn't end the sentence with finality. After several seconds more of thinking, he spoke. "Supposing 'runic drag' continues beyond the explosive, biorunes will have limited applications. I will explore the domain, as I have a faint suspicion that 'runic drag' may manifest differently in biological substrates than in stone. Nonetheless, my median expectation is that biorunes will absorb little of my time compared to stone runes, which appear to be a more fruitful domain."
"I agree that 'traditional' runes are probably going to be very useful," Hazō said. "At least, as much as a tradition exists when we're reverse-engineering everything from the Great Seal alone. I've already identified several research directions for runes that seem workable."
Orochimaru didn't dissuade him from continuing, so Hazō continued. "For one, now that we've replicated the most basic seal in rune form, I think a natural next step would be replicating the second-most basic seal. Apart from its utility, a storage rune would progress our understanding of the Great Seal."
"This is not a natural next step," Orochimaru said. "Topomantic theory depends on simplifications that will not hold in higher dimensions. Without appropriate topomancy, dimensional storage effects will be considerably more challenging. Do you have evidence to indicate otherwise?"
"I'm pretty sure the added power of runes will make things easier," Hazō said. "Spacetime is hard to fold but not impossible, and we have the biggest hammer since the Sage himself. And I'm willing to put some work into it solely because it's useful."
"I see only limited utility," Orochimaru said. "Storage seals optimize logistics, but runic drag prevents hypothetical storage runes from transporting materials. Moreover, there is no reason to believe that storage runes will store chakra non-catastrophically. This is why storage-type effects cannot be used to terraform – large swaths of natural dirt or water cannot be reliably stored without accidentally storing a living being and causing a sealing failure. In very few situations would I want to store a massive quantity of prepared, non-chakra-laden material, only to retrieve it in exactly the same location."
"Perhaps it'll be hard to store chakra," Hazō said. "But the Dragons are somehow stored away, aren't they?"
Orochimaru raised an eyebrow. "As I mentioned, current experiments suggest no evidence of chakra use on their part. Moreover, we are totally ignorant of the Great Seal's function. We cannot claim that it is a storage effect. For all we know, it holds Dragons invisibly and intangibly in the air above the Seal, and its slow failure lets the Dragons worm free of the affected area. That conjecture would make far more sense than a storage sub-dimension which is somehow partially open and connected to the Seventh Path."
"Regardless," Hazō said. "I think there's enough upside potential that it's worth exploring, even though it might not pan out for many reasons. As you said, storage seals are transformative. Discarding the idea of a storage rune without even exploring it would be foolish."
Orochimaru nodded.
Hazō relaxed slightly at Orochimaru's approval. Even vaguely calling anything of Orochimaru's 'foolish' had been a gamble, but Hazō had cautiously decided to slightly mirror the man's mannerisms.
"I have a couple other promising directions," Hazō said. "I'd like to re-implement air domes as runes. Hopefully, increased range and strength makes them effective defenses for a clan compound or even a city."
"An obvious use-case," Orochimaru said.
"Similarly, I'd like to make a Five Seal Barrier-equivalent rune. A Five Rune Barrier? The space-time effect can't be scaled up, but the maximum volume and mass probably can be, and undamageable supports would make the effect far more useful for defense."
Orochimaru turned away from Hazō to face the operating table. Hazō let the man think.
Finally, Orochimaru spoke. "I am unsure whether a rune would require auxiliary anchor seals at all. The greater aetheric distortion created by runes could be used to provide equivalent spacetime anchoring, could it not?"
Hazō considered that. "Maybe. But the anchoring needs to be very stable for the Five Seal Barrier, and the aetheric distortion in runes so far fluctuates way too much to be used as a stabilizer."
Orochimaru stood and retrieved a piece of paper from a side cabinet, before leaning over the operating table to sketch out a rune design. Hazō followed.
…
"No, the effect needs to start immediately when the rune is activated, so we can't have the seal infer the appropriate compensations for astrological influences."
…
"A trivial error. It would obviously be catastrophic to lead an inverted chakra flow through this loop. You needn't point such things out; this is merely a sketch."
"It has important implications, however. This three-way shifter would need to be a four-way, for instance."
…
Orochimaru frowned as he gathered the sketches and folded them neatly in half. "At least we have identified our uncertainties," he said. "If they must exist at all, the supports would play a very different role."
He handed the folded notes to Hazō. Hazō raised an eyebrow.
"You said you wished to look into it, no?" Orochimaru said. "Perhaps you will find our brainstorming useless. If not, do not waste the work we began here. At the very least, inform me if aetheric distortion can indeed be suppressed."
Hazō took the papers. "Thank you, Lord Orochimaru. I understand that my proposed research directions are all pretty derivative." At least, the ones he'd been willing to share with Orochimaru were. He wasn't going to tell the Snake Sannin about his true ambitions with runes – not when he hoped to control the flow of time and grant himself infinite chakra. "Still, since it's a completely new discipline, I think trying the basics first makes sense."
"Bar the Great Seal, it is logical to begin with effects producible by sealing," Orochimaru said. "I have not thought long about which seals to adapt as runes, but there will certainly be many that would be valuable once I have achieved a satisfactory skill level."
"Speaking of the Great Seal," Hazō said, "you had described your plan to deactivate and completely replace the Great Seal. Is that plan still in effect? Or have you re-evaluated it since learning runecrafting?"
Orochimaru took his seat again and exhaled lightly. "Understanding runes better now, I expect that initial proposal would fail, though I have no better solution yet. There is still no evidence that runes are modifiable during operation, so any solution must replicate the Great Seal's function. Disabling it and activating an equivalent rune would have been intuitive… except that runes take exceptionally long to infuse, which may make sealing the Dragons impossible – say, if upon being freed, they flee to the distant corners of the world. I had hoped that the gap would be seconds. That hope has been disproven. The smallest adjustment to the plan would be to invert the order of operations and activate a rune that takes over the Great Seal's function before safely shutting down the Great Seal.
"Naturally, this is a far more complex task than directly replicating the Great Seal's function, since it must not only do that, but simultaneously interface with an actively failing rune in order to do so. Merely replicating the Great Seal could well be a project beyond our capabilities, so I would mark this route impossible by default. Yet, I see no better option, and I have spent time specifically thinking about solutions. You have spent far more time runecrafting and studying the Great Seal. Surely you must have explored more options than I with all your precious, protected clone-hours. What solution do you favor?"
Hazō winced. "I don't know. In truth, I haven't done much runic research beyond the basic explosives I showed you." And, unfortunately, his godlike ambitions were all still theoretical.
Orochimaru narrowed his eyes slightly. "Is that so? Then perhaps you needn't waste your shadow clones' time teaching me much longer."
Orochimaru didn't say it, but Hazō could feel the weight of the Sannin's dismissal. He was assuming that Hazō, having gained the ability to make runes, was content to enjoy his explosives and theorize about simple, straightforward research pathways rather than attempt anything truly ambitious like fixing the Great Seal.
"Well," Hazō said quickly. "The thing is, Akatsuki tends to drop by unannounced at times, and I don't want to give them the secrets of runecrafting. If I don't know when they'll drop by, I can't do rune research for fear of them stealing my stuff."
Orochimaru raised an eyebrow. "And why would Akatsuki have so much interest in you?"
Hazō hesitated. If Orochimaru didn't know about Hazō's involvement in the O'uzu rift yet, Hazō probably shouldn't tell him. And Hazō definitely didn't need to tell Orochimaru that Hazō had somehow earned Jashin's favor and therefore Hidan's adoration.
"Basic diligence, I expect," Hazō said. "Why wouldn't they check in on Leaf's- one of Leaf's best sealmasters for free?"
Orochimaru caught Hazō's hesitation, and his expression narrowed.
"What would they expect to learn from observing a single day of seal research?" Orochimaru asked. "That you are working on another derivative of a basic defensive seal? This is little payoff for the cost of interrupting you and violating Leaf's authority. No, you expect Akatsuki will be specifically interested in you."
"I do," Hazō admitted. "But it's personal. Can you suggest how I can mitigate that risk? I'm sure you see that Akatsuki cannot be allowed to learn about runecrafting, and that I need to research runes to make progress on the Great Seal."
"Explain why Akatsuki cares about you in particular."
"I can't," Hazō said, keeping his voice as firm as he could.
"Then I can only prescribe the coarsest solution. Your runecrafting research henceforth will happen on my estate. We will travel outside Leaf for research infusions. I will prepare an area for your study."
"And if that's not possible?" Hazō asked. He didn't want Orochimaru taking control of everything Hazō discovered about runecraft, not when his grand ideas were ambitious enough to beggar the Sage. Plus, if Akatsuki decided that Hazō had retreated to Orochimaru's Basement for rift research, they might not even shy away from a confrontation with the Snake Sannin to stop Hazō…
Orochimaru inclined his head. "Then you will find a way to conduct runic research in enough secrecy to satisfy me. You are correct that we cannot let Akatsuki, blind fools that they are, acquire this capability."
Hazō supposed he didn't need to ask Orochimaru what he would do if he couldn't research what he wanted in Leaf. Orochimaru had already answered that question fifteen years ago.
"Yet the fact that you ask me for aid suggests that you cannot achieve secrecy even with the resources now available to your ally, the Fox," Orochimaru said. "You will cease runecrafting research except that which you can conduct within my privacy seals, and under my supervision when outside Leaf. Is that clear?"
"I understand, Lord Orochimaru. I will consider it."
"I must go and check on your clone's progress," Orochimaru said, standing. "You may consider whatever you please. If you find a sufficiently secret way to conduct your research, you may do so wherever you like. Else, you will not endanger civilization needlessly."
With that, Orochimau left the room, leaving Hazō to consider how to keep his research secret from the various S-rankers whose attention he'd caught.
o-o-o
"I'll take my time and consult with my clan before I make any final decision," Hazō said as Orochimaru returned. "After all, it's not like I'm actively doing runic research, as I mentioned."
"So, your clan also knows about runecraft?" Orochimaru asked. "Interesting.
"Regardless, you will take every effort to prevent Akatsuki from discovering anything about runecraft. Is that clear?"
"I have no interest in letting them find it out either, Lord Orochimaru."
"Good," Orochimaru said, returning to his chair. "Your clone is sullen. It appears that you have grasped the basics of the technique, and it is not what you were hoping for."
"Ah…" Hazō said. "I guess when I reintegrate my memories, I'll have to see what he's feeling. Hopefully he did not bother you too much?"
Orochimaru frowned. "I am putting up with many irritations to satisfy the terms of our deal. This is but one."
Hazō hummed. "For someone who describes himself as anti-social, you have had at least a couple of students. Doctor Yakushi, obviously, and Mitarashi Anko as well."
"Correct."
"Do you enjoy teaching?" Hazō asked. "Or did you take students out of pragmatism, to craft useful assistants for yourself?"
"Neither," Orochimaru said. "Anko was a member of the genin team I took at the Third's insistence. He had ever the blind-spot when it came to aligning incentives – the fastest way for me to return to my research would have been to let them die off. Unfortunately, I instead elected to efficiently turn them into chūnin and thus free myself of their obligation. As for Kabuto, he has mastered the art of being more useful than irritating. You are aware that I reward those who act in my favor, and he serves me well."
"I see. So when it comes to teaching, do you just satisfy your obligations as efficiently as possible?" Hazō asked.
"Have you known me to be inefficient, nephew?"
"Not at all," Hazō said quickly. "But I'm wondering how that fits into your overarching philosophy for learning. Specifically, you said that secrets and power are for those who earn them – which is fully reasonable, given what vast havoc can be done by those wielding undeserved power."
"Correct."
"Yet, without someone to point the way, how can anyone find anything worthwhile? For someone suitably ambitious, what are they to do without knowing what path they should take? I'd half-expect that they might end up flailing about at random, completely counterproductively."
"If one desired power yet could not calmly reason about the steps necessary to get there, they would be worse suited to wield it than even most Kage. Such a path creates only cretins like Hidan," Orochimaru said.
"Right, but how can someone earn power or secrets if they're shut down at every juncture by their superiors? Active obstruction doesn't filter the worthy from the unworthy, it just filters the unlucky from those fortunate enough not to be noticed by lore-forbidders."
"Regarding earning power, perhaps our hypothetical someone might discover things of note and trade them to their local Sannin in exchange for training," Orochimaru said dryly. "As to secrets, have you known me to obstruct anyone's learning? I do not mislead or deceive you, nor do I forbid you from seeking the world's secrets. Individual secrets are rarely useful in their own right; it is only through gathering dozens that the whole picture starts to be seen. And it foils the purpose of the search to construct a paved path for all to follow in learning them. Some train their chosen successors in their forbidden knowledge to preserve their traditions. I have little interest in such conceits."
"I see," Hazō said. "So, of your students, none of them stood out to you? None of them were particularly worthy in your eyes?"
"No."
Right. Orochimaru didn't do social bonds. He saw people as useful, but when their usefulness as living, breathing people ended, he wouldn't hesitate to make them useful corpses. The operating (dissection? vivisection?) table in the room served as a reminder of that fact.
"Anyway…" Hazō said, trailing off and pretending to contemplate, as if he hadn't prepared an oversized list of conversation topics well in advance. "I've been thinking more about bloodlines since our last conversation. You mentioned something interesting about the Five – namely, that despite their exotic origins, the bloodline ninja of the Five clans use only ordinary chakra techniques, very much unlike the Dragons with their abilities irreproducible by chakra, or even the jinchūriki who are substantially empowered by their connection with the Tailed Beasts."
Orochimaru nodded for him to continue.
"Another piece of information I have – I've been warned that none of the Five clans must ever completely die out. My guess was that the bloodline itself is a seal on the entity that the clan is attached to, whether that entity be a cognitive fragment of the Tenfold Abomination or something else entirely. If the clan dies out, the bloodline and the seal no longer exist, thus freeing the entity.
"So, considering your observation, I have a hypothesis: that other bloodlines are also seals on smaller fragments of the Tenfold Abomination or other such entities, made by the Sage and his companions."
Orochimaru inclined his head as he considered. When he spoke, he spoke slowly. "Interesting hypothesis, and not one that I have heard proposed before. None would want to attribute their bloodlines to the ultimate incarnation of evil. As for other entities, why would the Sage rummage beyond the veil for beings to bind to this universe? Yet… perhaps there is a kernel of insight that can explain the various unique traits demonstrated by various bloodlines."
"Hm… Actually, I don't think the answer can be that simple," Hazō said. "After all, deviant bloodlines exist, such as my own Iron Nerve, which emerged centuries after the Sage."
"This is insufficient evidence to discard the hypothesis," Orochimaru said. "Many entities change their nature and split over time. The Tenfold Abomination was famed for its ability to rapidly mutate, adopt new forms and abilities, and split off parts of itself. While other evidence would indicate if bloodlines were indeed derived from shards of the Tenfold Abominations, bloodline divergence alone is plausible."
"Interesting," Hazō said. "What exactly would you expect?"
"Given the Tenfold Abomination's nature, some evidence that use of the bloodline leads the user towards violence or ruin," Orochimaru said. "Yet most bloodlines are tools, devoid of volition."
"I see," Hazō said. "That doesn't make bloodline mutations feel any less odd to me. I wonder… You mentioned that, were I to receive a transplant of the Sakamoto bloodline, my natural bloodline would reject it. Would that still be the case if two bloodlines were closely related? Would, say, a Minami take more readily to a transplant of the Byakugan, or a Kurosawa to the Sharingan?"
"Do you have a Sharingan wielder's corpse?" Orochimaru asked.
"No," Hazō said. "I'm just asking out of curiosity."
"Hm. If you do acquire one, I could certainly provide the requisite surgeries at an appropriate price, and without troublesome questions about the corpse's provenance. As to rejection likelihood, I do not know. I would guess the likelihood diminishes, but exact results will vary bloodline-by-bloodline or even individual-by-individual. It's possible that the similarity of the native and transplant bloodline causes the body to reject the transplant even more strongly, but I think it is unlikely. My median guess is that the body accepts the transplant and the connection degrades slower than an unrelated bloodline, and the connection may be sustainable indefinitely with regular applications of appropriate biosealing procedures."
"I'll keep that in mind," Hazō said. "Anyway, I also think the explanation of bloodlines as bound entities would rule out the expanded Elemental palette that many bloodlines grant to their users – like the Terumi Clan and their Lava Element."
"How does this rule out the hypothesis?" Orochimaru asked. "Setting aside that the Terumi Clan has the Boil Element rather than Lava, many jinchūriki channel non-standard elements using their Tailed Beasts. If at all, variant element bloodlines are evidence in favor of your hypothesis."
"But what exactly is a bloodline element? I know that summon clans have more elements than humans, and some of them can even use bloodline elements. The summons say that nature chakra on the Seventh Path lets them do this, but for humans to use the same elements, it can't be exclusive to the Seventh Path. Is that what bloodline elements are? An inflexible ability to use the nature chakra of the Human Path?"
"What do you know of nature chakra?" Orochimaru asked.
Hazō mentally reviewed what the Toad Sages had told Noburi. "Well, chakra has a lot of components. Normal chakra that humans use is one component, and nature chakra is a larger component of all chakra that maybe includes human chakra, which would explain why summons can sometimes use the basic five elements that humans use."
"Disappointing," Orochimaru said. "You found someone loose-lipped enough to reveal the existence of nature chakra, and they elect to mislead you."
"I had a feeling that the explanation didn't fit together right," Hazō said, as Orochimaru stood and Hazō resisted a faint urge to flinch. The Sannin ignored Hazō and instead walked to a floor-to-ceiling cabinet, which he started to rifle through. "The whole non-standard elements thing really feels like it's hitting something essential. How can humans use these different, exotic elements? In fact, it's not just limited to bloodline users of these elements – I have it on reputable authority that ninja with different bloodlines can learn elements beyond the basic five, instead of just being born with them. That strikes me as extremely unusual."
"Your sister learned the Nara's Shadow Element, I presume?" Orochimaru asked, as he inspected various vials. "They are the only non-standard element users in Leaf, and I do not believe you have traveled far enough to find another clan so willing to share their secrets."
"Yes, Lord Orochimaru."
"The Shadow Element is not a typical example, as it is not anchored to the Nara's bloodline. But that should be a trivial inference, given that you already know about the Five clans.
"Regardless, here is a demonstration," Orochimaru said, placing a beaker upon the table. He poured vial after vial of transparent liquid into it.
"Chakra is a latent energy field that suffuses the Human Path. It is not uniform, but rather has distinct subcomponents, believed by scholars to be created by the Sage for use by his various companions. Human chakra, which is the predominant type of chakra on this Path, is one component." He poured a vial of liquid colored a faint yellow into the clear beaker, leaving it still transparent.
"Nature chakra is simply another component," he said, holding up a vial with a darker red fluid. "It is the predominant type of chakra present on the Seventh Path." He poured in a few drops, turning the solution faintly pink.
"Ambient chakra is a mixture of numerous subtypes of chakra, which, apart from human chakra for humans and nature chakra for summons, are currently impossible to interact with, survey, and study. All humans possess an affinity for human chakra, though only ninja are capable of using it effectively."
"So when a ninja uses chakra…" Hazō said.
"They are solely using a single phase of chakra. A human's chakra coils filter human chakra from the ambient mixture – analogous to lifting a stone up to the top of a hill. It creates tension and latent movement. The boulder wishes to roll down the hill and gains speed and power by doing so. Its movement can knock down trees if released correctly. In the same way, filtered chakra within a human's coils can be returned to the ambient mixture in such a way as to produce useful effects. This naturally disproves the explanation provided to you of nature chakra – were it simply a broader set of components from the ambient mixture, it would require less work to separate, and would thus release less energy when used in ninjutsu. Instead, nature chakra releases more energy when used."
"Why is that the case?" Hazō asked.
"It would take well more than four hours to explain," Orochimaru said dismissively, as he turned back to the cupboard to fiddle with a more complicated apparatus. "Different phases of chakra have different properties. The human phase of chakra strikes a balance between ease of use and potency. Of course, this has limitations – as you noticed, human chakra can only be aspected into five elements, while nature chakra can be aspected into many more, including the human elements. Of course, nature chakra's volatility comes with downsides as well."
Hazō frowned. "What exactly is an element?"
Orochimaru shrugged, turning to arrange various glass instruments on the operating table. "I do not know. It is still a mystery why chakra expresses itself in these particular, discrete forms. It is something that sages have spent centuries contemplating without finding answers. As to bloodline elements, I believe your hypothesis is correct. Bloodlines such as Boil or Magnet release allow the user to passively aspect the faintest amount of nature chakra in order to create a seed of the alternate element that the user's human chakra then fuels. Rarer nature-chakra elements, such as Star Element, are completely incompatible with human chakra, and thus cannot be used as the foundation of a human bloodline. Naturally, this is all information which I have inferred as a result of my own painstaking research."
Information which Orochimaru had derived from a hundred or a thousand dead 'subjects', Hazou thought. "So when a ninjutsu uses chakra, it is using human chakra. But when a seal uses chakra, does it use the raw ambient chakra?"
"No," Orochimaru said, filling a short metal cylinder with twigs. "Seals manipulate raw chakra as a useful substrate to perform various operations, but they do not use it as an energy source. It is the operations conducted in the paraisolation layer which provide the energy that powers a seal. You are aware of this."
"Right," Hazō said. "I suppose I just didn't know about the difference between different… phases? Of chakra."
"Evidently." Orochimaru tapped his thumb and forefinger together, causing a small flame to emerge from his fingertip. He lit the cylinder filled with twigs, which caused flame to lick up onto a glass plate. He carefully decanted a thin layer of fluid from the mixed beaker onto the plate, and the fluid quickly started to bubble. An angled glass plate above caught the steam, and condensation dripped down into an empty beaker. Hazō watched the process. The smaller beaker was filling slowly, but it was filling solely with the pale yellow liquid that Orochimaru had used to represent human chakra.
"A demonstration of how, once mixed, it is challenging to filter a component out of the whole. This substance was easy to extract as it boils more quickly than the rest of the mixture, so this method would not apply to a different component of the mixture. In truth, human chakra is incredibly challenging to separate from the ambient mixture, which is why the function of the chakra coils is still not fully understood. It is certainly not solely biological."
"Hm…" Hazō said. "So, if different methods can filter individual chakra phases, and humans can use nature chakra automatically through their bloodlines… could a human train themselves to filter nature chakra and learn to use it manually? Obviously, it wouldn't be nearly as natural and fluid as someone on the Seventh Path who was born to use chakra in that manner, but I don't see why it would be impossible."
Orochimaru glanced at Hazō. "Did Jiraiya leave you his notes, or did you speak with the Toad Sages about this?"
"Just the Toad Sages, Lord Orochimaru," Hazō said.
"Yes, filtering nature chakra is possible for humans, but it is challenging. Merely filtering it out is insufficient. A body acclimated to a particular chakra phase cannot handle alternate phases, and anyone who held nature chakra within their coils would quickly die. Animals, for instance, are meant to tolerate nature chakra rather than human chakra. On the Seventh Path, animals grow normally – the sapient summons and non-sapient creatures of the Path alike. On the Human Path, animals are submerged in human chakra instead. As a result, they lose their minds and mutate in various ways, often gaining elemental abilities in the process."
"That doesn't explain the Inuzuka dogs," Hazō said. "While they're not sapient, they're more like Seventh Path Dogs, than any chakra beast even though they're exposed to human chakra all the time. The same goes for the Aburame's bugs, I think."
"Correct," Orochimaru said. "Which is why new animal-tamer clans never arise. I suspect that the Inuzuka's dogs were designed for existence on the Human Path, unlike chakra beasts. Sadly, I have not had the chance to study an Aburame in depth."
Hazō ignored Orochimaru's casually professed desire to dissect a fellow Leaf ninja. "So, humans can learn to use nature chakra?"
"Correct," Orochimaru said. "It was one of Jiraiya's many skills. Nature chakra does not just grant additional elements of ninjutsu. Instead, he primarily used it to mold internal biphasic chakra, which is substantially stronger than monophasic chakra for reasons unknown to me. The Toad Sages know the full details, but it appears they chose to obfuscate the truth about nature chakra – perhaps to keep you alive. I do not know how to train someone in the use of nature chakra, and I do not care if you kill yourself by playing with dangerous toys. If you have further questions, the Toad Sages are your only recourse."
"Understood, Lord Orochimaru. I have one final related question. Is it necessary to learn nature chakra manipulation to adapt Seventh Path ninjutsu for human use, or are there additional barriers?"
"Obviously not, given that you needn't manipulate nature chakra to cast it," Orochimaru said. "There are specialized skills involved when adapting ninjutsu from a particular clan's tradition to the human one. Most clans with recent summoners can aid a human ninjutsu designer in the process."
"Got it. I've had difficulty in the past learning Dog ninjutsu due to the anatomical differences," Hazō said. "I've wondered – are your body modifications made at least in part to allow you to better cast Snake ninjutsu? Would I need to modify myself in the same way to cast Dog ninjutsu?"
Orochimaru frowned. "I will not comment about my own bioseals. For the vast majority of Dog techniques, appropriate enhancements may work as an alternative to adapting the techniques the usual way – though if you are choosing between learning technique hacking or biosealing for the sake of Seventh Path techniques, you should obviously learn biosealing. You are an adequately skilled sealmaster, and you would waste your time splitting your attention between fields."
"I'll take that into consideration," Hazō said neutrally. He didn't need to explain to Orochimaru that he'd already started learning technique hacking, and he certainly didn't want Orochimaru to find out why he'd started learning it.
Orochimaru eyed him for a moment. "You are grasping at power, with your investigation of bloodline transplants, learnable elements, nature chakra, and Seventh Path ninjutsu."
"Yes, Lord Orochimaru," Hazō said.
"Good," Orochimaru said. "Perhaps you are less of a waste than I first thought. Regardless, your ill-tempered clone has probably been left unattended for far too long. I will teach you the Bones of Creation technique, which will not take long with your prior experience in Earthshaping. I suppose you may finish claiming my time when I teach your brother those combat medical ninjutsu."
Joining the Crusade (Hazō's name for the progress of the Seventh Path Clan Bosses on their way to murder Dragons) had a lot in common with eating psychedlic mushrooms.
Both were things that he would never do by choice. The mushrooms had been forced upon him by his instructors as part of Hazō's SERE training at the Academy. Joining the Crusade was necessary because of eldritch extradimensional (possibly-)Externals attempting to eat a universe.
Both were utterly surreal, filled with images that would haunt him forever. The mushrooms had made the world melt, then become incoherent and awful as the instructors slipped on oni masks and screamed at the trainees, flicking them with thin branches and capering about like demons. The Crusade rested atop a gently-curving plain of dappled tortoiseshell with a dozen minor deities and their attendants chatting, complaining, playing dice, and occasionally jogging down towards the downward-curving back of the shell to step behind a curtain at the back of the shell in order to defecate or urinate. The minor deities in question ranged from a gargantuan toad to a monkey the size of a large man. The attendants consisted of a handful of juveniles of various species and various ages playing in the way that juveniles do. The hatchling turtle and the tiny tadpole were chasing each other around, the tadpole moving at normal toad speeds (which was surprisingly fast, actually) and the hatchling alternating between slow lumbering and literally lightning-quick surges as her body occasionally crackled with raiton energy. Pandā, desperate to prove himself more mature, watched longingly while pretending to read a book of philosophy, its pages likely unturned for minutes. The young Condor soared above them, balanced on long wings as she surveyed the world for miles around.
"Bye!" Cantelabra said, galloping away now that he had performed his duty of bringing Hazō to the Seventh Path. Bringing the Summoners to the Seventh Path was the only reason the children were present, and Hazō hated that it was necessary.
Cannai glanced over and nodded to Hazō, then turned back to his conversation with Haiwarai, who was currently no larger than he.
"I am the lord of Clan Gōketsu, a special jōnin of the Leaf, possibly the greatest sealmaster alive, master of the forgotten art of lithosealing," Hazō whispered to himself, fortifying his mental defenses against the psychic pressure in the air. The Clan Bosses probably weren't making an actual effort to assault him or anyone else. They were simply existing, and this was what it meant. Despite that, breathing felt like dragging mud through his lungs.
"You can't call it lithosealing," he singsonged to himself, mocking the Snake Sannin's words. "You need to change the name and just because you created it doesn't mean you get to name it and I'm the Snake Sannin so you have to do what I say wahhh." He ground his teeth. "Runecrafting, fine. Out loud, anyway."
The griping helped, distracting him from the mud in his lungs until he managed to press it back a bit and breathe calmly.
He slipped around the edges of the conversation and up to Kamehameha's head. A six-foot-wide leather chin strap was wound around the Turtle's head specifically so that people could climb down to be next to his ears. Hazō had no idea how the handless Clan Lords and -Ladies managed it, but maybe they simply didn't. Heck, given who they were maybe they simply thought about him hearing their words and the universe scurried to obey.
The band was covered in loops that served as good hand- and footholds, meaning Hazō had no difficulty lowering himself down to the house-sized depression in the side of the Turtle's head that was his left-side ear. Hazō slid into one of the loops, using it like a seat and leaning comfortably back against the Turtle King's warm cheek. Far too far below him the ocean rolled in long, slow waves that ranked off to the horizon. Hazō was on the western side of the enormous turtle so the water stretched on forever with no sign of land anywhere. It was an isolating feeling, seeming as though Hazō was the only living creature in the world aside from the living island he leaned against.
The wind was blowing onshore, the waves rolling towards Hazō but never reaching him; the Turtle King was moving through the water so fast that he launched a frothing white bow wave to disrupt and force away anything approaching. A gentle breeze blew in Hazō's face, cooling him from the sun that beat down above.
"Good morning, King Kamehameha," Hazō said at last. "Am I disturbing you?"
"YOU ARE NOT, YOUNG HUMAN! IT IS A MOST YOUTHFUL THING YOU DO, KEEPING ME COMPANY AS I SWIM THESE LONG MILES!"
"Thank you, sir. How is the swim?"
"A TAD NIPPY, TO BE HONEST! ALSO, THE SALT WATER MAKES MY FLIPPERS ITCH IN A VERY UNYOUTHFUL WAY!"
Was it possible, Hazō wondered, for the enormous turtle to get through a sentence without using the word 'youth'? Perhaps it was a source of strength for him. Maybe that's why Maito Gai had been so powerful, because he was always dressed in turtleshell green and shouting about youth?
"Sorry to hear that, sir," he said instead of sharing his thoughts. "I wanted to thank you for doing this. For pushing the Conclave through, and for cutting the knot and carrying everyone to Arachnid."
"OF COURSE, YOUNG SUMMONER!"
"Sir, you are a bit of a contradiction," Hazō said with a smile. "Simultaneously one of the eldest beings on the Seventh Path and also the most youthful."
"HO HO HO! A MOST YOUTHFUL BIT OF WORDPLAY! I HAVE ALWAYS ENJOYED HUMANS! YOUR APPROACH TO THINGS, THE PATTERNS OF YOUR THINKING, ARE VERY DIFFERENT THAN OURS!"
"Thank you, I think?"
"HO HO HO!"
"I wanted to ask...do the Turtles have any tales of the Sage and his companions that you would be willing to share with me? I'm gathering all the lore I can about that time, hoping that it might help with this Dragon situation."
"TALES OF OLDEN TIMES, TALES OF OLDEN TIMES...INTERESTING! OF COURSE WE HAVE TALES OF THEM!"
Hazō waited. After an awkward pause he asked, "Would you...share them with me?"
"OF COURSE!"
Pause. "Would you please share them with me, now?" Hazō said, struggling not to sound acerbic.
"HO HO HO! HUMANS, SUCH AN ETERNAL DELIGHT! WHERE WOULD YOU LIKE ME TO BEGIN?"
"Well...did he actually create chakra?"
"CREATE CHAKRA? CREATE CHAKRA?! HO HO HO, IS THAT WHAT THEY SAY ON THE HUMAN PATH? OF COURSE HE DIDN'T CREATE CHAKRA! CHAKRA IS AN ESSENCE THAT UNDERGIRDS THE WORLD! IT IS THE WANDERING THOUGHTS OF DIVINE BEINGS, NOT A PAINTING OR A SCULPTURE OR THING THAT MORTAL HANDS COULD SHAPE!"
"Divine beings?"
"YES! BEFORE THE WORLD BEGAN, THE KAMI EXISTED IN DARKNESS AND SILENCE. THEY DANCED AND BATTLED AND SANG AND SHAPED THE AETHER, EACH TO THEIR OWN WILL. THEY WERE CONSTANTLY AT ODDS, EACH ONE DISCORDANT AND AT CROSS PURPOSES WITH THE REST. THERE WAS BATTLE—AGAINST WHOM IS UNCLEAR. PERHAPS AGAINST A FOE FROM BEYOND AND POSSIBLY AGAINST EACH OTHER. WHAT IS CLEAR IS THAT THE BATTLE WAS CONSTANT AND, INASMUCH AS KAMI HAVE BLOOD, IT WAS BLOODY.
"EVENTUALLY ONE KAMI, YOIRĪDĪ, BROUGHT THEM TOGETHER IN MOOT. THE TALES THAT SPEAK OF BATTLE AGAINST OUTSIDERS SAY THAT THE KAMI CAME TOGETHER TO FIGHT AS A SINGLE JAW, SLASHING THROUGH THEIR FOES LIKE A HUNGRY TURTLE THROUGH A CAPELIN SWARM. THE TALES THAT SPEAK OF BATTLE INTERNECINE SAY THAT THEY AGREED TO TRANSFORM THE NATURE OF THEIR BATTLES TO PREVENT LOSS OF ETERNITY. WHATEVER THE TRUTH, THEIR POWER SPILLED FORTH AND BECAME THE WORLD. THEIR SPIT BECAME THE WATER OF THE OCEANS, THEIR BLOOD BECAME THE SAP OF THE TREES, THEIR BONES BECAME THE SAND OF THE BEACHES, THEIR BREATH BECAME THE WIND, AND THEIR THOUGHTS BECAME THE POWER OF CHAKRA."
"Chakra is the thoughts of dead kami?"
"INDEED! ALTHOUGH I NEVER SAID THEY WERE DEAD!"
"But...their blood is the sap?"
"MAITO GAI OFTEN SHED BLOOD AFTER SCRAPING HIS KNUCKLES ON THE TRAINING DUMMIES!"
"Their bones are the sand. You don't shed bones in training."
"THE TALES ARE CONFLICTING. REGARDLESS, THE REASON CHAKRA HAS SO MANY ELEMENTS IS BECAUSE IT IS FORMED OF THE THOUGHTS OF MANY KAMI...AND PERHAPS OF THOSE OF WHATEVER INCOMPREHENSIBLE HORROR THEY BATTLED. SOME OF THESE THOUGHTS ARE GENTLE, SOME ANGRY, SOME HOPEFUL, SOME DESPAIRING. SOME ARE THE THOUGHTS OF THOSE WHO JOINED THE MOOT WILLINGLY, WHILE SOME ARE FROM THOSE WHO WERE DRAGGED BY WHATEVER IT IS THAT ELDER BEINGS USE FOR NOSTRILS!"
"Different thoughts, different kinds of chakra. Human chakra and nature chakra," Hazō murmured, nodding slowly.
"AND EVERY ELEMENT WITHIN THOSE AND WITHIN THE OTHER TWELVE TYPES!"
"Wait, other twelve types?"
"IN ANY CASE, THE WORLD EXISTED FOR COUNTLESS EONS BEFORE THE BIRTH OF WISE ONES, AND THEN FOR YET MORE BEFORE THE BIRTH OF THE ONE YOU NAME THE SAGE.
"THE THOUGHTS OF THE KAMI, THE POWER THAT IS NOW CHAKRA, HAD TORMENTED AND BEDEVILED ALL THINGS SINCE THE FIRST MOMENT. THE SAGE GATHERED THAT POWER TOGETHER AND LEASHED IT TO THE WILL OF THE LIVING IN ORDER TO PREVENT IT FROM HARMING ANYONE EVER AGAIN. THERE WAS TOO MUCH FOR HUMANS TO CONTROL; HE STRUGGLED FOR DECADES TO FIND A WAY, BUT IN THE END HE GAVE UP. HE STORED IT AWAY INTO THE BEASTS OF THE FIELD, THE BIRDS OF THE SKY, THE LIFE OF THE WATERS. WHEN THIS WAS STILL NOT ENOUGH HE FOLDED IT INTO THE VERY PLANTS THAT ARE THE ROOT OF ALL LIFE IN THE COSMOS. EVERY TREE, EVERY BUSH, EVERY BLADE OF GRASS IS A PRISON AND A PURIFYING LENS FOR THE POWERS AND PARTS LEFT OVER FROM A BATTLE AMONG PRIMAL BEINGS BEFORE TIME BEGAN. DESPITE THE VAST NUMBERS OF GRASS BLADES AND HUMANS AND TURTLES, EVEN THIS WAS NOT ENOUGH. THERE WAS STILL TOO MUCH POWER UNCONTAINED."
The King of Turtles fell silent, leaving Hazō to digest this revelation in silence.
"What does it mean to say that there was 'too much power'?" Hazō asked. "What did it do?"
"WHAT DID IT NOT DO IS THE BETTER QUESTION. THE POWER WANTED TO TEAR AWAY THE VEIL THAT PROTECTS OUR WORLD AND REUNITE WITH ITS SOURCE—OR, DEPENDING ON THE TALE, THE DEAD BODIES OF THE KAMI THAT HAD BEEN GROUND UP AND USED TO FORM THE UNIVERSE STRUGGLED TO AWAKEN AGAIN. THE POWER OF THESE BEINGS ROILED, CREATING AND DESTROYING AT RANDOM. IT WOULD FORM INTO EDDIES AND SNARLS, MUCH AS DID THE DUST UNDER OUR LAST-BUT-THREE SUMMONER'S BED. 'DUST BUNNIES', AS SHE CALLED THEM, CAUSE NOTHING MORE THAN SNEEZING. EDDIES AND ECHOES OF PRIMAL POWER GROW FANGS AND MINDS THAT DRIP WITH HATRED. THEY MAKE THINGS FALL UP, OR SIDEWAYS. THEY TRANSFORM THEIR SURROUNDINGS OR SHRED THEM TO DUST. THEY UNMAKE REALITY IN WAYS THAT NO BEING CAN PREDICT."
A chill went down Hazō's back. "Seal failures," he breathed. "Living seal failures. Cracks in reality, spreading in ways that can't be predicted or controlled."
"I AM UNFAMILIAR WITH YOUR SEALING ARTS BUT YES, THE SOUND OF YOUR WORDS SWIMS ON FLIPPERS OF YOUTH AND TRUTH."
"You said that he locked the energy inside every living thing," Hazō said. "He used us to control the energy before it caused harm."
"INDEED! AND TO TRANSFORM IT FROM SOMETHING WILD AND UNTAMED INTO SOMETHING THAT COULD BE USED FOR PEACE! FOR WARMING THE COLD, FEEDING THE HUNGRY, AND HEALING THE SICK. SADLY, THERE WAS NOT ENOUGH LIFE IN THIS WORLD TO IMPRISON ALL OF THE ENERGY OF THE KAMIMOOT. NOT BY A HUNDRED LEAGUES. HE DID WHAT HE COULD, AND THEN HE GATHERED UP ALL THE REMAINING ENERGY AND TORE IT AWAY FROM THE HUMAN PATH. HE DRAGGED IT INTO THE SPACE BEYOND WHERE HE SQUEEZED IT, COOLED IT, AND SHAPED IT UNTIL IT BECAME PHYSICAL THINGS THAT WOULD BE BOUND BY RULES. OF THESE, HIS GREATEST CREATION WERE THE SIX PATHS OF LIFE THAT BRANCHED OFF FROM THE PRIME PATH."
"The Prime Path? From context, does that mean the Human Path?"
"HO HO HO! WELCOME TO THE DEBATE, YOUNG SCHOLAR! SO MANY HAVE ARGUED THAT QUESTION ACROSS THE CENTURIES OF MY LIFE. OBVIOUSLY, MOST TURTLES BELIEVE THAT WHAT WE CALL THE SEVENTH PATH WAS IN TRUTH THE PRIME PLANE OF WHICH THE OTHERS ARE ECHOES. SOME BELIEVE THAT THE SAGE, HAVING A HUMAN APPEARANCE MOST OF THE TIME, WOULD HAVE BEEN BORN ON THE HUMAN PATH AND THEREFORE THAT IS THE PRIME PATH."
"What do you think?"
"I AM BUT A HUMBLE TURTLE, YOUNG SUMMONER! HOW SHOULD I KNOW THE ANSWERS TO SUCH WEIGHTY QUESTIONS?"
Hazō looked sourly at the cliff that was the enormous turtle's cheek. Kamehameha must have sensed the look because his slow, booming laugh echoed out across the waves far below Hazō's dangling feet.
"Hang on," he said after a moment. "You said that the Sage had a human appearance, and only most of the time?"
"I HAD WONDERED HOW LONG IT WOULD BE BEFORE YOU ASKED AFTER THAT! HO HO HO!"
Hazō sighed. "Would you please tell me what you meant by that? Was the Sage not human?"
"LOOK BEHIND YOU, HAZŌ OF CLAN GŌKETSU!"
Confused, Hazō turned around in his sling seat. After a moment he realized that the steady motion of Kamehameha's legs had broken rhythm for a moment before resuming its steady sweep. Hazō frowned in confusion before finally getting it.
"Did...did you just shrug?"
"INDEED I DID! THE TIME OF THE SAGE WAS LONG BEFORE MY BIRTH AND I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT THE SAGE TRULY WAS. HE IS WELL KNOWN FOR SHAPECHANGING AND THUS EVERY CLAN HAS ROOM TO CLAIM HIM AS THEIR OWN, SAYING THAT HE MERELY DISGUISED HIMSELF AS A HUMAN FOR SOME COMPLICATED REASON THAT VARIES BY THE YEAR OR EVEN THE MOMENT. HE MAY HAVE BEEN A HUMAN, OR A TURTLE, OR A LEOPARD, OR EVEN A LIVING TREE THAT DECIDED TO ASK THE WOODSMAN NOT TO CHOP IT DOWN AND BECAME SO ENAMORED OF THE MAN THAT THE TREE ADOPTED THE FORM OF HIS KIND AND BORE HIS CHILDREN. HE MAY HAVE BEEN BORN ON THE HUMAN PATH, OR THE SEVENTH PATH, OR THE DEVA PATH, OR ANY OTHER. OR, PERHAPS, HE WAS BORN OUTSIDE OF ANY PATH BECAUSE HE WAS ACTUALLY THE KAMI YOIRĪDĪ, LEADER OF THE KAMIMOOT! IT WOULD EXPLAIN HIS POWER OVER THE REMAINS OF THE KAMI AND THEIR PERHAPS NONEXISTENT ENEMIES."
"Wow."
Hazō fell silent, digesting the implications of that. If he shared this information in Leaf, what would the implications be? It could be seen to threaten some of the underpinnings of the Will of Fire, as Hashirama's philosophy—well, the philosophy of that civilian from whom Hashirama had stolen it, although Hazō couldn't remember the man's name.
He frowned, combing through his memory, then shook the tangent away. The Will of Fire derived some of its authority from the idea that Hashirama was the spiritual successor to the Sage of Six Paths, uniting humanity in the way that the Sage had tried so long before. If people knew that the Sage might not have been human, would it destroy their sense of connection to him?
For that matter, what about the Sage's companions? They had always been stated to be human so far as Hazō knew. Why would a non-human gather a coterie of only humans?
Whatever the Sage had been, was it true that he tried to use chakra to unite everyone's minds? How did that work when the power of chakra was actually the loving but also hateful thoughts of beings from outside the universe...actually, that made it seem more plausible and not less, although it also made it seem more likely that the project would have Gone Horribly Right had it succeeded.
So, so many questions. Amazingly, he seemed to have found a person who both knew the lore and was, miraculously, willing to share. The idea beggared belief but seemed to be the case. He mentally rubbed his hands in glee and organized his thoughts.
XP AWARD: 1 This update was an hour or so long.
Brevity XP: 0 Giving a brevity award twice feels like a bridge too far, sorry.
"GM had fun" XP: 2 The Turtle King is fun.
Hazō still has Kamehameha's ear (ha!). You can ask more questions or move on.
Vote time! What to do now?
Voting ends on Wednesday,
.
Last edited:
Chapter 644: The King and ALL the Gorram Questions
"Sir," Hazō said. "If this is an impertinent question please feel free to wave me off, but I'm curious. If chakra is the thoughts and remains of the kami, how does it interact with the Seventh Path? You and the other Clan Rulers have some sort of bond with your territory. I saw Lord Enma claim a small bit of territory on the island of the Archaeopteryx, and I have heard Cannai talk about taking territory from other rulers, so clearly that isn't a static connection. I'm guessing that's some kind of chakra effect, but what specifically? How does it work?"
"HHHHMMMMMMMMMM." The Turtle King's hmm echoed forth, skipping across the waves like a thrown stone. "THE LORD—OR LADY—IS THE LAND, SUMMONER. THE LAND IS THE LORD OR LADY."
"Right, but...how?"
"IF THAT DIDN'T MAKE SENSE, I'M AFRAID I DON'T KNOW HOW TO EXPLAIN IT BETTER."
"I've seen you do things—not you you, mostly Cannai. When he's in the mood, Dog Territory ripples around him. He—"
"'WHEN HE IS IN THE MOOD'? HO HO HO! YOU ANGERED YOUR CLAN LORD, DIDN'T YOU? CANNAI ALWAYS STRUCK ME AS ONE OF THE CALMER AMONG US. YOU MUST HAVE DONE SOMETHING MOST IMPRESSIVE."
"...No comment. Still, he moves ridiculously fast when he wants to. He fades in and out of view—Lord Kumafuwafuwa does that too, and let me tell you how alarming it is to have a bear the size of a small house appear from nowhere a few feet behind you. How do you all do that?"
"DO YOU FIND IT DIFFICULT TO MAKE YOUR LEFT HAND APPEAR NEXT TO YOUR RIGHT? WHEN YOU TELL YOUR FOOT TO BE SOMEWHERE OTHER THAN IT IS, DOES IT RESPOND WITH YOUTHFUL SPEED OR DOES IT LOLLYGAG ALONG LIKE A DECREPIT ANCIENT BEFORE ANSWERING YOUR COMMAND?"
"Wait, are you saying that you are literally the land? That your body is a...shadow, that you manifest wherever you please? Like the way Earthshaping allows me to generate a statue anywhere within its area of effect without needing to actually walk over and sculpt the thing by hand."
"THAT IS NOT WHAT I SAID."
"But—"
"BUT IT IS NOT ENTIRELY WRONG, EITHER."
"You're saying—"
"AND ALSO NOT ENTIRELY RIGHT."
Hazō closed his mouth and gave King Kamehameha a narrow-eyed look.
"YOU HAD OTHER QUESTIONS?"
Hazō pondered that. He still didn't understand this 'the Lord is the Land' thing, but it might be better to let it go and think on what he'd heard, then come back to it later. He wasn't sure how long Kamehameha's patience was, and it was likely better not to irritate him by continuing to pick at something that he had already been told couldn't be explained better.
"Okay, moving on. You mentioned twelve 'other' kinds of chakra aside from human and nature. This is the first time I've heard about these. Can you tell me more about them?"
"YES."
"Would you please tell me about them?"
"OF COURSE!"
Hazō sighed. "You're going to do that thing where you answer questions very exactly and literally, all the time pretending you don't understand basic idioms, aren't you?"
"WOULD SOMEONE AS YOUTHFUL AS MYSELF DO SUCH A THING?"
"In one beat of that comically oversized heart of yours." He caught himself. "Uh...respectfully. Sir."
"HO HO HO! SUCH A BITING TONGUE ON YOU, YOUNG DOG! CANNAI MUST ENJOY YOUR COMPANY TO NO END!"
"Fine. Please tell what the fourteen kinds of chakra are."
"ALL THIS TALK OF CHAKRA IS SO DULL! SO MANY QUESTIONS...I SHALL HAVE TO COMPLAIN TO CANNAI THAT THE DOG SUMMONER HAS BEEN HOUNDING ME!" He paused and his head turned very slightly as though he were trying to see Hazō from the corner of his eye.
"Yes, I got the pun," Hazō sighed. "You and Cannai must get along incredibly well."
"HO HO HO!"
"Fine, fine, I'll stop bothering you." Hazō started to pull himself out of his sling seat, only to pause when the Turtle King's voice boomed out once more.
"I NEVER SAID I WAS BOTHERED BY THE HOUNDING, YOUNG SUMMONER! YOUR QUESTIONS ARE THE SIGN OF A MOST YOUTHFUL MIND!"
"So you will tell me about the fourteen kinds of chakra?"
"A MOST YOUTHFUL YET VERY SINGLE-PATHED MIND!"
"I honestly can't tell...is that a 'yes, I will tell you' or a 'no, I am having way too much fun messing with you to actually provide useful answers'?"
"AH, POOR ME. HERE IS POOR KING KAMEHAMEHA, SHARING HIS ANCIENT KNOWLEDGE WITH THE YOUTH. DISPENSING WISDOM AND SECRET LORE FROM ALL FOUR FLIPPERS! VAST IS HIS EXPERIENCE, WIDE HIS LIST OF SUBJECTS, YET ALWAYS IT IS CHAKRA, CHAKRA, CHAKRA! NEVER ANY YOUTHFUL VARIANCE, ONLY THE STAID AND STOLID STOMPING OF THE AGED, THE NIGH-SENESCENT!"
"...You're saying that you're tired of talking about chakra and I should change the subject?"
"I SAID NO SUCH THING!"
Hazō glared grumpily at the massive turtle. Then his eyes narrowed. "Hang on. Are there actually fourteen kinds of chakra, or were you pranking me and now you're dancing around the subject because if I keep pressing it's going to make your prank fall apart?"
"I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT YOU MEAN, SUMMONER! WHAT IS THIS 'PRANKING' OF WHICH YOU SPEAK?"
"...You know what? Fine, let's change the subject. We started off talking about the Dragons; the Toad Sages once called them 'Externals', and Orochimaru says that they don't have chakra. Do you know anything about either of those things?"
"I AM AWARE OF THE EXISTENCE OF EXTERNALS, OF COURSE. BEINGS FROM OUTSIDE OF EVERYTHING."
"I call it the Paint," Hazō said. "The world, I mean. It's like a thin coat of paint on top of madness and chaos. The Dragons come from the other side of the Paint?"
"A MOST CREATIVE METAPHOR! AND A SURPRISINGLY ACCURATE ONE! YES, ALTHOUGH THE COSMOS IS NOT FLAT LIKE THE CANVASES OF HUMAN PATH PAINTERS. ITS SURFACE WIGGLES AND WIBBLES ABOUT LIKE AN INDECISIVE HATCHLING CAUGHT BETWEEN TWO TREATS! NONETHELESS, IT IS FAIR TO DESCRIBE REALITY AS PAINT OVER THE WAVING SANDS OF TIME!"
"And the Dragons come from beyond it?"
"INDEED!"
"Is there anything else out there that we need to worry about?" He wasn't going to explicitly mention Jashin, at least not out the gate.
"THAT WE NEED TO WORRY ABOUT? NO."
"...You're doing that thing where you interpret my words unhelpfully literally, aren't you? Implying that 'we' don't need to worry about it because you are an incredibly powerful Clan Lord and so it's not a threat to you, but I need to worry about it because I'm a squishy young human?"
"HO HO HO!"
"Allow me to rephrase. Are there any other entities outside of reality aside from the Dragons?"
"MANY! HAVE NO FEAR, THEY CANNOT ENTER THE SEVENTH PATH."
"As a reminder, I'm not from the Seventh Path."
"AH! A MOST YOUTHFULLY SALIENT POINT!"
"Can those many entities enter the Human Path?"
"HMMMMMM...DIFFICULT TO SAY. WORDS, WORDS...WORDS. SO CONFINING! SO LIMITING! EVEN THOUGH I GATHER UP THE LAST MORSEL OF YOUTH WITHIN MY FRAME, STILL I CANNOT CONJURE FORTH PRECISION."
"Could you try? Maybe skip over the precision and give me a general picture?"
"SURELY YOU DON'T WANT ME TO GIVE YOU UNTRUTH WRAPPED IN THE GUISE OF AUTHORITY? IT WOULD BE MOST—"
"Unyouthful, yes, I'm sure. I pinky-promise that I won't overcommit, that I'll keep in mind that what you say might be incomplete, that there are probably things you don't know—"
"THINGS I DON'T KNOW?! ARE YOU ACCUSING ME, KING KAMEHAMEHA, ELDEST TURTLE, LORD OF THE SHELLED, OF BEING IGNORANT?! A TINY LITTLE HUMAN, BARELY AN ADULT EVEN BY THE MAYFLY STANDARDS OF YOUR PEOPLE, INSULTS ME IN ALL MY MAJESTY EVEN WHILE RIDING ON MY NECK? HOW DARE YOU!"
Hazō's stomach clenched involuntarily, but he made himself pause before reacting. He took a breath, then another, and forced himself to be rooted in his body. The sun was blazing down, the wind of their passage was heavy on his face, making his hair whip around in his eyes and tickle his ears. He sat in a leather sling, feet dangling hundreds of feet above sun-dappled waves and a bow wake taller than he was. He leaned back against the pebbly, leathery skin of the largest turtle in the cosmos, a being so huge and so ancient that other Clan Bosses rode on his shell. A being with a voice like an earthquake. A voice that was now rumbling forth in fragments of boulders that skipped and bounced across the waves of what seemed an endless ocean.
"King Kamehameha...are you giggling?"
"HO HO HO! PERHAPS"—he had to break off as another snicker pealed forth—"PERHAPS A LITTLE. YOU WILL FIND, YOUNG HAZŌ, THAT AS YOU AGE YOU HAVE NEW EXPERIENCES AND RECEIVE NEW INFORMATION. IF ONE IS FORTUNATE, SOME FRACTION OF THAT ENORMOUS NUMBER OF EXPERIENCES WILL DISTILL THEMSELVES DOWN INTO A DROP OF WISDOM. THE FIRST DROP THAT ONE SHOULD ATTEMPT TO GATHER IS A CERTAIN SENSE OF HUMILITY REGARDING ONE'S OWN LACK OF KNOWLEDGE, LACK OF EXPERIENCE, AND, MOST ESPECIALLY, LACK OF WISDOM."
"Uh-huh."
"THE SECOND DROP, HOWEVER, SHOULD BE THE IMPORTANCE OF FINDING YOUTHFUL HUMOR WHEREVER ONE CAN."
"Including at the expense of naive young humans?"
"CONSIDER IT ONE MORE EXPERIENCE TOWARDS YOUR FIRST DROP! THE FIRST DROP IS, AFTER ALL, THE MOST IMPORTANT DROP!"
"Right. Yes, thank you for that important life lesson, sir. Now, I was saying that I will keep in mind that language is imprecise and can't always convey every nuance of complex subjects and that there are many other caveats regarding the questions I've been asking you. I will also stipulate that I'm not going to hold anything you do or don't say, intimate, imply, hint at, fail to hint at, subtly gesture towards, or in any other way bring into this conversation, against you or allow it to reduce the level of reverence in which I hold you."
"I NOTE YOU DID NOT SPECIFY THAT IT WAS A HIGH LEVEL OF REVERENCE, MY MOST YOUTHFUL INTERLOCUTOR!"
"With all of those caveats out of the way," Hazō said, rolling quickly by the turtle's perceptive comment, "could you— No, wait. No idioms. Right. Okay, please answer the following question: can the beings from outside our cosmos, which I will from now on refer to as 'Externals' unless you— Nope, trying again. Does there exist a creature that is currently outside our cosmos that is capable of entering the Human Path?" He paused for the answer, then hastened to add, "Anything other than the Dragons, which may or may not have the ability and I would like to discuss that later."
"HO HO HO! MY FOURTEENTH-GONE SUMMONER WAS A WOMAN NAMED KOU. SHE WAS A WISE WOMAN AMONG HER PEOPLE, HER JOB TO ADJUDICATE DISPUTES, TEACH THE YOUNG, AND CARE FOR THE SOULS OF HER TRIBE. SHE TOO HAD LEARNED TO SPEAK IN CAREFUL PHRASINGS THAT TWISTED BACK UPON THEMSELVES AS DO YOURS." His sigh was epic and long-drawn. "I MISS YOUNG KOU! AND OLD KOU, FOR THAT MATTER. SHE DIED AT NINETY-SEVEN! CAN YOU BELIEVE THAT? NINETY-SEVEN! BARELY A HATCHLING!"
Hazō waited in respectful silence, praying that the conversation was not going to drift into fond memories of someone long dead before Hazō's great-grandfather was born.
"HMMMM...I SUPPOSE SOMEONE AS YOUTHFUL AS YOURSELF WOULD PREFER TO FOCUS ON THE FUTURE INSTEAD OF LISTENING TO AN OLD TURTLE WANDER THROUGH FOND MEMORIES OF A SUMMONER LONG DEAD BEFORE YOUR GREAT-GREAT-GRANDFATHER WAS BORN."
Hazō swallowed nervously; the people of the Seventh Path communicated mind-to-mind across the 'gestalt field', whatever that was. Their voices usually had all the same characteristics of verbal speech, but he did find himself wondering if perhaps a Clan Lord could hear his surface thoughts as well as simply transmitting his own.
"WHAT WERE WE TALKING ABOUT?"
"I was, uh, I was asking if there are any entities from beyond the cosmos who are capable of reaching the Human Path."
"AH, YES! I WOULD EXPECT SO. MANY, IN FACT. THE WASHERMAN HAS REACHED OUT TO YOUR PATH MANY TIMES. I KNOW OF ONE OCCASION WHEN THE UNKIND ONE SPOKE TO A HUMAN, AND THAT IS ONLY THE ONE I AM CERTAIN OF. I HAVE HEARD MANY TALES THAT HINT AT OTHERS."
"'The Washerman'? What is that?"
"IT WASHES THE SOULS OF THE DEAD AND GUIDES THEM BACK ALONG THE PATH OF REINCARNATION. A MOST DUTIFUL BEING FROM ALL THAT I HAVE HEARD, DEDICATED TO ITS TASK AND EAGER TO PERFORM IT. WHY IT TAKES ON THIS DUTY OR HOW IT DOES IT, I HAVE NO IDEA. I AM REPORTING ONLY WHAT VARIOUS SUMMONERS HAVE TOLD ME OR BROUGHT TO ME IN BOOKS AND SCROLLS, AND WHAT THE MASTERS OF MY OWN WORLD HAVE LEARNED OVER THE CENTURIES."
"How does it enter my world?"
"NOT PHYSICALLY, IF THAT IS YOUR CONCERN. IT INFLUENCES EVENTS IN SMALL WAYS—THE FALL OF A STONE THAT SETS OFF A LANDSLIDE, A GLINT OF SUN THAT DISTRACTS A WARRIOR AT A CRITICAL MOMENT, THAT SORT OF THING. AND, OF COURSE, IT SPEAKS TO SOME OF YOU."
"It speaks to humans?!"
"CERTAIN HUMANS ARE BORN WITH MINDS THAT DWELL CLOSE TO WHAT YOU CALL THE PAINT. THE WASHERMAN AND ITS BRETHREN CAN SOMETIMES WHISPER TO THESE VULNERABLE SOULS IN DREAMS OR MOMENTS OF DISTRACTION. SO FAR AS I KNOW, THEY CANNOT PROVIDE CLEAR WORDS, ONLY HINTS AND NUDGES. STILL, THE WORLDS ARE WIDE AND THINGS CHANGE IN THE FULLNESS OF TIME. PERHAPS THEY ARE NOW CAPABLE OF LONG CHATS BY THE FIRESIDE AND EXCHANGES OF POETRY."
"That's a joke, right? Beings from the Out aren't really interested in poetry so far as you know, right?"
"HO HO HO! I HAVE NO REASON TO BELIEVE THAT THEY ARE, NO. TO RETURN TO THE EARLIER TOPIC, THE WASHERMAN'S GOALS ARE WIDELY AGREED UPON, BUT IT IS IMPORTANT TO UNDERSTAND THAT THESE BEINGS ARE NO MORE INTERESTED IN OUR AFFAIRS THAN YOU ARE INTERESTED IN THAT OF A NEW FRY. THE FRY CONSIDERS ITSELF THE CENTER OF ITS OWN UNIVERSE AND IT CARES VERY MUCH ABOUT THE SOURCES OF FOOD AROUND IT, THE TEMPERATURE OF THE WATER, AND THE ARRANGEMENT OF THE ROCKS IN WHICH IT HIDES. IF YOU WADE PAST AND TEAR UP THE KELP THAT IT WAS FEEDING UPON, YOU ARE NOT DOING IT BECAUSE YOU HATE THE FRY AND WISH TO HARM IT. YOU LIKELY ARE NOT EVEN DOING IT BECAUSE YOU WISH TO EAT THE SAME THING THAT THE FRY WAS EATING. YOU ARE PERHAPS WEEDING YOUR KOI POND, OR COLLECTING SEAWEED TO USE AS A SCENT FOR YOUR SAUNA. IF YOU ALSO SCATTER THE ROCKS IN WHICH IT HIDES, YOU ARE NOT DOING IT BECAUSE YOU WISH TO DESTROY THE FRY'S SHELTER; MOST LIKELY YOU SIMPLY BUMPED THE ROCKS BY MISTAKE. ASCRIBING GOALS TO THE BEINGS FROM BEYOND YOUR 'PAINT' IS CHALLENGING AND FRAUGHT WITH PERIL."
"You ascribed a goal to the Washerman...?"
"INDEED! THAT ONE, I AM RELATIVELY CONFIDENT OF. IT HAS MADE ENOUGH IMPRESSIONS ON YOUR WORLD THAT MANY OF THEM HAVE TRICKLED BACK TO ME OVER THE CENTURIES AND THEY PAINT A CONSISTENT PICTURE. FOR ITS BRETHREN, THINGS ARE FAR LESS CERTAIN. THE BEST THEORY I KNOW REGARDING THE UNKIND ONE IS THAT IT ENJOYS RANDOMNESS AND CHANGE. IT REACHES INTO THE HUMAN PATH IN ORDER TO CAUSE AS MUCH CHANGE AS POSSIBLE, BUT IT DOESN'T SEEM TO CARE WHAT THE CHANGE IS OR HOW IT AFFECTS THOSE THAT LIVE THERE."
"What kind of changes?"
"A SMALL LANDSLIDE ALTERS THE COURSE OF A RIVER, LEAVING HUMANS TO STARVE IN A DROUGHT AND FLOODING OTHERS OUT. SHADOWS MOVING IN STRANGE WAYS STARTLE AN ANIMAL, CAUSING IT TO FLEE INTO THE WOODS WHERE IT ENCOUNTERS THE TRAIL OF SOME HUMANS. THE ANIMAL WAS ALREADY HUNGRY SO IT FOLLOWS THE HUMANS BACK TO THEIR HOMES. IT KILLS AND EATS, THEN RETURNS AND FETCHES ITS PACK IN ORDER THAT THEY MAY KILL AND EAT. YOU NOTE THAT I DESCRIBE THESE THINGS IN TERMS OF HOW THEY AFFECT HUMANS, BUT THE UNKIND ONE MAY WELL NOT CARE ABOUT THAT. IT MAY HAVE DIVERTED THE RIVER SIMPLY BECAUSE THE NEW COURSE IS MORE AESTHETICALLY PLEASING. IT MAY NOT EVEN BE AWARE THAT HUMANS EXIST."
"Is everything it does harmful? If it's causing randomness, surely it must be helpful sometimes?"
"OF COURSE! THE RIVER THAT CHANGES COURSE WILL WATER SOME FIELDS THAT WERE IN NEED. THE DICE THAT FALL DIFFERENTLY WILL EARN DESPERATELY-NEEDED FUNDS FOR A MAN ON THE EDGE OF STARVATION. THOSE THINGS HAPPEN, BUT THERE ARE FAR MORE PATHS TO WOE THAN WEAL. IF ONE TAKES ACTION WITHOUT PLAN OR PURPOSE, IT IS FAR MORE LIKELY YOU WILL CAUSE HARM THAN GIVE HELP."
"True." He thought on that. "Speaking of which, have you heard the name 'Jashin' before? There is a man named Hidan who worships him as a god. Jashin wants him to kill as many people as possible, and helps him with special abilities and sometimes even guides him to targets. He, uh, he also seems to have adopted me as his other High Priest, except he wants to support my Uplift goals so that the population can increase and there can be as many people as possible for Hidan to murder."
"THAT SOUNDS LIKE A MOST UNCOMFORTABLE POSITION TO BE IN! YOU HAVE MY SYMPATHIES, YOUNG SUMMONER. I REGRET TO SAY THAT I HAVE NOT HEARD THE NAME."
"Rats. Okay, thank you. So the beings from beyond the Paint—is it okay if I call them 'Externals' or does that mean something else?"
"IT SEEMS LIKE A VERY SERVICEABLE WORD."
"Great, thank you. So the Externals can't reach into the Seventh Path but they can reach into the Human Path to a limited degree. They can influence the motion of shadows and small objects, plus they can influence a person's dreams or give them ideas. They can't directly talk to humans as far as you know. Is that right?"
"INDEED! ALTHOUGH MY KNOWLEDGE OF THE EXTERNALS IS MERELY A DABBLER'S FANCY THAT I HAVE NOT ESPECIALLY PURSUED IN...OH, A CENTURY OR SO. I HAVE HEARD MANY TALES OF THEM, MOST OF WHICH ARE LIKELY TO BE NONSENSE OR SHEER FANTASY. I DO SUSPECT THERE OF BEING FAR MORE THAN THE ONES I AM AWARE OF."
"There are five clans on the Human Path, each of them with a special bloodline that helps them think better, or at least differently. One of them, the Mori, seems to be connected to some sort of otherworldly being. Their gift is optimization, and when they want to optimize a plan they will reach out to 'the Ice'—that's what they call it—and come back with objections and corrections. Is it possible that the Ice is an External?"
"IN MY LIFE, I HAVE COME TO THE CONCLUSION THAT ALL THINGS ARE POSSIBLE, EVEN THOSE THAT APPEAR UTTERLY IMPOSSIBLE OR EVEN CONTRADICTORY."
That...did not seem right. No matter what happened, there would never be a married bachelor or a square triangle. Still, Hazō wasn't about to bring that up.
"Do you know of any way to fight against Externals, or to keep them from reaching into the Human Path?"
"IT SOUNDS TO ME AS THOUGH YOUR PATH WOULD BE QUITE DISRUPTED WERE THE EXTERNALS NOT ABLE TO REACH IN. THESE FIVE CLANS WOULD LOSE THEIR POWERS. THIS 'HIDAN' WOULD LOSE HIS GOD."
"Hidan losing his god would be the most brilliant thing ever," Hazō said fervently. "Hidan murders people constantly. He's evil."
"HMMMM..."
Hazō waited.
"'EVIL' IS A COMPLICATED THING, YOUNG SUMMONER. A COMPLICATED AND MOST UNYOUTHFUL THING. IT IS ALL TOO EASY TO ASCRIBE THAT WORD TO ONE'S ENEMIES, REGARDLESS OF WHETHER THEY DESERVE IT. I HAVE NOTICED THAT THE WORD 'EVIL' IS USED LESS AND LESS OFTEN AS ONE LEARNS MORE AND MORE ABOUT A PERSON OR SITUATION."
"...You are not seriously—" Hazō broke off and forced himself to breathe. "King Kamehameha, are you suggesting that murdering random civilians for no reason is not an evil action? Hidan doesn't confine himself to killing bad people, or to worthy enemies, or even to grownups. He murders whoever happens to be nearby when he's trying to fill his quota."
"DOES HE TORTURE THEM?"
"Well...no. He just cuts them in half with his weird scythe."
"IF HE KILLS QUICKLY AND PAINLESSLY THEN HE IS NOT SEEKING TO DO EVIL FOR THE SAKE OF EVIL. HE HAS A PURPOSE AND WHAT HE THINKS IS A VALID REASON FOR WHAT HE DOES. THE REASON MAY BE A BAD ONE, HIS PURPOSE MIGHT BE A BAD ONE, AND HE IS MOST DEFINITELY LACKING IN YOUTH. DESPITE THAT, I URGE YOU NOT TO APPLY THE LABEL 'EVIL'. IT IS A BOX THAT TRAPS THOUGHTS. ONCE AN OPPONENT IS DETERMINED TO BE EVIL THERE IS NO NEED TO ATTEMPT TO UNDERSTAND THEM. UNDERSTANDING ONE'S OPPONENT IS THE BEST WAY, AND OFTEN THE ONLY WAY, TO SECURE VICTORY OVER THEM. I ASSUME THIS HIDAN IS POWERFUL?"
"Extremely. Plus, he's a member of Akatsuki, a group of S-rank ninja who have been terrorizing the world for years. Neji hasn't briefed you on all this?"
"I WILL SAY ONLY THAT YOUNG NEJI IS USUALLY TOO BUSY FOR LONG DISCUSSIONS ABOUT POLITICS AND CURRENT EVENTS WITH HIS MONARCH." A (relatively) soft 'HO HO HO' skipped across the waves as Kamehameha laughed privately about some joke he hadn't spoken.
"I see. Well, Akatsuki is made up of Uchiha Itachi, Konan, Deidara, Sasori, Hidan, and Hoshigaki Kisame. Their leader was Nagato, who called himself Pain. These people are missing-nin from a variety of villages, but they are so powerful that no one even tries to hunt them down. They kidnapped the nine jinchūriki and used them as fuel to do a ritual that would have...well, we don't know. Somehow reshaped humanity in order to prevent war, we think. It might have involved connecting everyone's minds together so that we could each feel what everyone else was feeling? The Kage of all five Hidden Villages went to stop them, bringing along an army of jōnin, several other S-rank ninja, and the Toad Sages. They barely squeaked out a win, and most of them died in the process. Nagato agreed to shut the ritual down safely so long as he could sacrifice his own life to resurrect his companions. He did, he died, they left. Hidan is one of those people."
"I SEE WHY YOU FIND HIS GOALS ESPECIALLY DISTURBING, GIVEN HIS POWER AND THAT OF HIS ASSOCIATES."
"Yup. We're still trying to figure out what that ritual was supposed to do exactly. There's a word I've stumbled across, 'ninshū'. I've seen some references that make me think maybe it has something to do with connecting people mentally. Then there's the aura that jōnin all seem to get, which allows them to project their feelings onto others. Could that have been the basis for Pain's ritual?"
"A MOST YOUTHFUL QUESTION, YOUNG SUMMONER! YOU CERTAINLY DO FIND INTERESTING TOPICS—NO ONE HAS ASKED ME ABOUT MENTAL CONNECTION SINCE, OH, LONG BEFORE THE BIRTH OF YOUR LINE. YOU ASK ME IF I HAVE HEARD OF THIS 'NINSHŪ'?"
"Allow me to rephrase," Hazō said quickly. "Because I know how this conversation goes. Please, King Kamehameha, if the nature and mechanics of ninjshū and slash or jōnin aura are something I shouldn't know then please tell me so I can stop asking. If you don't mind me knowing about them, please tell me whatever you are comfortable sharing."
"HO HO HO! A MOST CLEVER PHRASING, YOUNG HAZŌ. VERY WELL. IN ANSWER TO YOUR QUESTION—"
Author's Note: Will our hero get an answer? Will he acquire a YOUTHSUIT and become Neji's apprentice and heir to the Turtle Scroll? Tune in next time, same Turtle time, same Turtle channel!
XP AWARD: 2 This update was only a couple hours.
Brevity XP: 0. 377 words
"GM had fun" XP: 0 This had the potential to be super fun but the list of questions was overwhelmingly large and then there were multiple other things on top of it. I kept looking at the clock, then at the progress of the update, then how little of the plan I had covered, and struggling to type faster.
Voting remains closed unless @Velorien or @Paperclipped open it. One or the other of them may want to continue this conversation for Thursday.
"...and finally, the chakra flow through this hollow ball must be inverted and sphericalized in order to produce the required omnidirectional slide effect that activates the dimensional resonance stabilizer."
Hazō didn't answer immediately. Orochimaru had spoken clearly and at a comfortable pace, but he also didn't pause at all when delivering his answers to Hazō's questions, forcing Hazō to take several seconds afterwards parsing and evaluating everything the older man had said.
"Yes, that's all correct." Hazō said. "Good work. I think that's a satisfactory stopping point for today's lesson."
Orochimaru nodded and promptly turned to exit the cubical underground lesson space. Hazō followed, expecting the same swift dismissal that usually marked the end of their lessons. Instead, his heart stuttered as Orochimaru stopped short of the doorway and turned to Hazō.
"I will not be available for further lessons tomorrow, given that the Seventh Path's various crusader champions will be arriving in Arachnid. Furthermore, I believe I understand runecrafting sufficiently well to make further progress without tutoring. Given the paucity of study runes you can provide, I expect further tutoring will be neither useful nor necessary. Do you expect you have more to teach me?"
Well, Hazō certainly couldn't say 'Yes Lord Orochimaru, in fact I have been withholding information about runecrafting from you'. Their lessons had been slowing down, as Hazō really didn't have much more to teach him, especially without new runes to demonstrate and analyze.
"No, I don't believe so, Lord Orochimaru. You have learned very quickly."
"Obviously," Orochimaru said. "Then this will be our final lesson. After the battle against the Dragons has concluded, you will coordinate with Kabuto and find a time where I can finish dispensing your required conversation hours and teach your brother my combat-applicable medical ninjutsu. Similarly, I will finish preparing your runic research space after said combat. I will not accommodate multiple clones of yours by default. Inform me in advance if I should prepare secondary research spaces."
"Yes, Lord Orochimaru," Hazō said. "I will."
Orochimaru paused for a moment, considering Hazō. Hazō struggled not to squirm under the Sannin's ophidian gaze.
"I will not pretend that you offered your knowledge out of the kindness of your heart, given what you demanded in exchange, but you have my gratitude for the lessons nonetheless, Gōketsu."
Hazō kept himself from raising an eyebrow. That looked like it had hurt Orochimaru to say.
"Needless to say," Orochimaru continued, "further discoveries will likewise be rewarded. And I would not oppose an occasional collaboration with you, if a challenging yet fruitful course of runic research occurred to either of us."
"Understood," Hazō said with a shallow bow. "I would be honored to work with you in the future, should the occasion arise." Of course, Orochimaru should have been the one honored to work with Hazō on runecrafting projects, but Hazō had long since realized that brown-nosing was required to keep the Snake Sannin from throwing around his killing intent like candied figs on an execution day (Leaf executions had far less flair than even Mist's standard fare).
"Speaking of the Crusade…" Hazō started as Orochimaru led him out of the Basement. "What is the status with that? I visited Kamehameha during their journey, and I'm surprised that they're already arriving. Will they fight right away?"
"The arrival will be tonight or tomorrow morning, seeing as they passed Wallaroo Island near noon today. The Dragons may notice the arrival of half the Path's metaphysical weight and attack immediately, or they may wait for their prey to draw closer. We do not know their sensory abilities and associated ranges, and no one will want to test them. A premeditated and prepared attack maximizes the odds of victory, and that requires initiating the battle as soon as reasonably possible."
"And what's the battle-plan?" Hazō asked. "There are enough summoners around to pass messages to-and-from Arachnid, so I bet something's been prepared."
Orochimaru raised an eyebrow. "You haven't involved yourself?"
Hazō shook his head. "I'd rather not draw Akatsuki's attention to me in any way, for obvious reasons."
"You mean your obscured reason," Orochimaru said. "Regardless, you have demonstrated a sufficient potential for creativity that perhaps your feedback would be worthwhile. You may conduct such feedback to the Arachnid Empress, perhaps through your uncle. Here is the plan at present.
"Hornets will bait the Dragons away from the butte. They shall attempt to lead one or more of the Dragons through a set of your so-called skyslicers. Similarly, they shall attempt to lead the amorphous red one to one of several prepared zones, where Itachi will attack it with a powerful bloodline-based ninjutsu. Finally, they shall attempt to bait the smallest remaining contingent of the Dragons towards the gathered forces. In the ludicrous world where nothing goes wrong, Kumokōgō and the twenty other Bosses will drown each Dragon one-by-one in overwhelming ninjutsu.
"There are seventeen representatives of various summon clans, including the Toad Sages, that will fight. Itachi will as well, though his presence will be of limited utility once the shapeshifter and the amorphous Dragons are killed. Tsunade and I will likewise provide our aid. Accordingly, the Tower will make your brother available. Tsunade and I will make a number of shadow clones, perhaps twenty apiece, and your brother will ensure these clones can fight at full capacity. Tsunade's clones will obviously be substantially more valuable than my own, but we will both limit our total clone number in order to limit exposure to the beauty Dragon."
"I see," Hazō said, feeling a faint sinking sensation as his control over Noburi's refills of shadow clones slipped further and further from his grasp. "That seems reasonably thorough, but it would take a lot of chakra to refill several dozen of your clones."
"Fortunately, the Fox appears to have placed great importance upon the Crusade's success, likely due to the former Hokage's reports. With the Tower's orders, hundreds of genin and chūnin will readily contribute to the most important battle on the Seventh Path in the last millennium."
"I see," Hazō said. "I suppose there's no point in refilling Itachi's shadow clones when he's so reliant on his bloodline."
Orochimaru tched his tongue. "No. I would not damn the Snakes to annihilation by the other Bosses just to kill that troublesome man, but I would gladly see Dragons kill him – bar the worst case in which they gain the Sharingan's abilities, obviously. Unfortunately, I suspect he is too cautious to risk his life unless truly necessary. I suppose Kisame may commit suicide… but his death is not particularly desirable."
"We can only hope," Hazō agreed. So it's Kumokōgō, twenty Bosses, seventeen summon clan elites, and four humans up against five Dragons, huh? I guess any of the other summoners would just get in the way."
"Correct." Orochimaru swung open the double doors that led to the entry hall and gestured vaguely at the front door to dismiss Hazō. "For better or worse, the battle will shortly transpire. If you wish to alter the plan, have your uncle convey further information to Kumokōgō and associates. Now leave. I have preparations to attend to."
The conversation with Kamehameha continued onwards for… quite a while, given the sheer amount of plan content. That will be written at some point – vote it in as an interlude if you are particularly interested in seeing it. The information may be important, but not immediately relevant (perhaps similarly to the conversation with the Toad Sages).
Kagome is doing fine. It seems like he's still hurt by your betrayal inviting Ami into the family, but that's a wound that's been heartily soothed by her sudden disappearance. He seemed to be holding himself back from any I-told-you-so's.
Hazō continues to learn technique hacking and attend various healing sessions. He does not find the time to return to talk about youth with the Turtle King, and as indicated above, teaches Orochimaru for the final time in this update.
This update covered three days, ending the evening of May 6 in character.
These are actually unspecified privacy seals that Hazō downloaded at some point or another in his adventures, prior to the chūnin exams. As Hazō's primary contact with ninja civilization during his adventures was with Leaf, we'll call these "Leaf privacy seals".
Jiraiya privacy seals
Namikaze privacy seals
As Naruto is not a sealmaster and Minato's (normal) seals wouldn't last a decade and a half, these are similarly drawn from the pool of general Leaf privacy seals.
Tower privacy seals
For previously mentioned reasons, privacy seals in critical places are often obscured. If, by some odd chance, there were seals here that weren't Jiraiya's or part of the broader Leaf tradition, Hazō did not download them.
Nara privacy seals
Hazō has not downloaded these, as he only saw them once through a shadow clone.
Uplift privacy seals
These are already in the players' possession, consisting of seals like the Air Dome, Silence Mine, and the Anti-Byakugan seals.
As a result, there are only two distinct sources of privacy seals to research: Jiraiya's privacy seals, and Leaf's broader privacy seals. As Hazō has access to all of Jiraiya's seals in note form (if you have more privacy seals you want to see, make suggestions and we may add them into the library of Jiraiya's seals), he will only do a difficulty check on the Leaf privacy seals.
In the Leaf privacy seals, there are several repeats such as the Air Dome, and three new ones. Normally, Hazō wouldn't know what downloaded seals do when he does a difficulty check. However, Naruto has already explained how these seals work.
Leaf Privacy Seal #1 detects movement in a hemisphere around the seal face, working through solid objects. It's primarily used to detect underground assailants. Difficulty: Chuunin.
Leaf Privacy Seal #2 causes a visual distortion in the air sufficient to disrupt lipreading without impeding your ability to notice people moving beyond the barrier. It is used in conjunction with Air Domes to have private conversations while also letting you notice if someone is approaching (or attacking). Difficulty: Genin.
Leaf Privacy Seal #3 causes a similar audio distortion as #2. It is useful as an alternative for Air Dome that doesn't restrict your mobility, and instead of killing noise, it lets you hear if there's a commotion outside the affected area. Difficulty: Genin.
Transcription note: Orochimaru-sensei dictated this to me during a training session. Afterwards, I transcribed it to longhand with minimal editorial corrections.
o-o-o
Now, let us begin with the information on Akatsuki. I preface everything with a disclaimer that Akatsuki's members have internalized the habits of power common in the Elemental Nations. They do not share their abilities and trump cards even with each other, so my knowledge represents only a subset of their general kits. Each likely has more abilities hidden from me or recently developed.
Perhaps I shall list them vaguely in order of their general capabilities. I shall start with Deidara then, as he is their weakest member by far. Formerly Hidden Rock of the Katsumi Clan. Apart from his bloodline, he also has Earth and Lightning Elements but no noteworthy techniques in either. Inexplicably, he also knows the Shadow Clone technique, though I cannot imagine how he acquired it. I have not observed him cast a non-elemental technique.
His combat skills would be mediocre for a jōnin. He has exactly two tricks. First, he is a ninjutsu creator of no small skill, and a combination of secret techniques and his own bloodline has made his offensive capacity, especially his wide-area offensive capacity, unparalleled in the Elemental Nations. To make that more precise: I have little doubt that he is well capable of dealing destruction comparable to the rune explosives you demonstrated to me. Perhaps he would be unable to match the full-strength explosive rune – we cannot say for certain until we have seen it.
Mere offensive prowess would be unimpressive – after all, many ninja possess powerful, lethal techniques. However, his other trick is flight, learned under Ōnoki. His flight is true flight, more akin to a bird than mere skywalking. He bestows this power to his clay creations, but in the time since Nagi Island, he may have mastered Ōnoki's unbounded personal flight. While skywalkers render him assailable, he is substantially faster and more maneuverable in the air than a ninja on skywalkers is capable of.
Regarding specific techniques, he has a standard set of enhancement ninjutsu in his core elements, which should go without saying. He uses clones, especially bloodline clay clones. Clay clones are quite useful in combat, unlike elemental clones, but are not as generally intelligent as shadow clones. He reshapes these clones into a variety of forms such as his signature dragons, though these forms do not impact the function of the clones – except the size of the final detonation as they explode. Hm… what else? Ah, he is exceptionally resistant to genjutsu.
It is a weakness that he is aware of, but his clay constructs can be prematurely detonated by powerful Lightning Element techniques. Really, his main weakness is that his offenses are one-dimensional. A sufficiently capable defense against explosives hamstrings him. His flight makes him overconfident, but the era of skywalkers will have tempered his expectations. He is prideful, not just of his combat capabilities, but of his "art". I do not know exactly how his obsession with explosions might be exploited, but it is likely exploitable. If only you had someone with the same neuroses to consult.
Perhaps Hidan next. Hidan has several unique capabilities which would make him threatening if he were remotely intelligent. Instead, he is an imbecile. Right, the boy did ask for favorite foods, did he not? This information serves no purpose as most of Akatsuki is nigh impossible to poison, but Hidan is an exception. Regardless, Deidara favors boiled eggs and Hidan prefers barbecue. He is not picky about the provenance.
Hidan is formerly from Hot Springs of the Blood Element Kotsuzui Clan. He also has Wind and Lightning Elements, though apart from basic enhancements, he uses such techniques rarely. Given his single-minded obsession with his scythe, he must have found truly exceptional techniques in those elements to muster the motivation to learn them. Movement and physical enhancement support his fighting style well, but I suspect that alone would be inadequate.
His scythe is noteworthy. It is several centuries old and crafted from an impressive quantity of chakra metal. He controls the scythe at range by channeling pulses of adhesion and repulsion through the scythe's cable, though he is naturally the most deadly in close quarters.
Regardless, his unique physiology is the primary interesting thing about him. At the surface, he appears biologically human, but no part of his physiology operates as one would expect. I suppose a detailed breakdown of his organs would be unhelpful. Regardless, Hidan is functionally impossible to kill through ordinary means. He has impressive combat-speed regeneration and can survive nearly any blow. Rare is the injury that slows him down. I recall an enemy jōnin once decapitated him. He dispatched the jōnin while his head trash-talked a few meters away, then strolled over and placed his head back on his shoulders. Had his head been destroyed, I do not know whether this would have killed him or whether he would simply have regenerated a new one in hours or days. It is not as if he has a particularly complex brain to reconstruct. Naturally, he is very cautious about damage to the arms or legs that would actually impede his fighting ability, and his unerring luck lets him avoid critical wounds.
Additionally, he possesses an exceptionally unusual esoteric technique. I am uncertain which components of this procedure are required and which are done for show because he is an imbecile, so I will simply describe it in full. Hidan draws his opponent's blood with a fighting style optimized for efficiently inflicting a scratch, even if said scratch would be inconsequential in an ordinary fight. Hidan consumes the blood. He draws a symbol in the ground out of blood – this does not need to be specifically the opponent's blood, as even his own blood works. This is the slowest step and takes around three seconds. He establishes an undefined sympathetic link between himself and his opponent. Thereafter, any injuries Hidan suffers are similarly suffered by his opponent. If he is feeling lazy, he will stab himself through the heart. The enemy's heart will then be destroyed.
He does not appear to be able to use this technique on multiple opponents simultaneously. However once the circle is drawn, he can select a new opponent by simply consuming a different drop of blood – the circle need not be redrawn. He need not inflict the injuries himself. The technique lasts for at least a minute. The maximum range I have seen him use it at is around half a kilometer. I do not know whether he can use stored blood for the technique – I have only seen him use fresh blood, but he makes many foolish decisions in the name of his religious restrictions. The technique fades a few seconds after he leaves the circle, but he typically would rather suffer injuries than be forced out of the circle prematurely. He appears to enjoy letting enemies strike him after he's used the technique and thereby cause their own demise.
Apart from his scythe, immortality, and esoteric techniques, is there anything more to him? No, he does lack depth. His greatest weakness is that he is an imbecile. He will eat food you present, he will walk into traps, trigger unknown seals, et cetera. Furthermore, he frequently lets his location become predictable when he travels the world to cultivate his various cults. As a particular weakness, I note that his immortality means little when measured against techniques that deny him the ability to use his body at all without injuring him. Naturally, he is moderately wary of capture techniques and genjutsu users. In particular, he is passable at blind-fighting – I suspect a bloodline technique that lets him weakly sense nearby opponents' blood.
Who next? Kakuzu? [Orochimaru-sensei laughs for around five seconds] Fool.
Unlike his peers, Sasori is not strong in direct combat. While his general capabilities would likely still grant him a win in a direct match-up, his puppetmastery is inferior to Chiyo's. However, he is a sealmaster of no small skill – while not on the level of myself or Jiraiya, he is certainly your superior. Given a target, he frequently develops specific and effective countermeasures. Most noteworthy among his skills is his biosealing. He has delved extensively into human bloodline research and frequently preserves bloodline capabilities within puppets made from appropriate corpses. While I suspect he cannot receive information from his puppets, making bloodlines like the Hyūga's and the Kozu's useless to him, he takes advantage of the various bloodline elements available in the Elemental Nations, such as Magnet, Lava, Phantom, et cetera.
He has modified his own biology extensively. He has even dabbled in brain modification. Prior to Nagi Island, he had reduced his body to a set of chakra coils and the minimum infrastructure necessary to support them, and had thus been able to embed his "body" into any puppet he so pleased. It appears Pain's resurrection technique reset his biological body to its counterfactual unmodified state, so I do not know what bioseals he elected to create this time. I suspect he will find new optimizations he previously overlooked.
As for specific abilities, I do not know exactly what new puppets he has made – though he must be substantially weakened for the loss of his puppet of the Third Kazekage. His catalog of seals is vast and varied. He has all the standard sealmaster staples, at approximately the highest level that such seals can be made, and his biosealing expertise makes him a particularly dangerous opponent.
Ah, I did skip the basics, didn't I? Formerly of the Karappo Clan in Hidden Sand, and he makes good use of their techniques, though his Yodomi bloodline limits his ability to innovate beyond them – though less than other bloodline-holders. I have never known him to use a ninjutsu. He has few weaknesses as he is a sealmaster and among the more defensively-minded Akatsuki. He is well aware that effects that disable chakra threads or bioseals would leave him helpless or dead, and has prepared defenses accordingly. Still, unless he has constructed his biology differently, that is a weak-point of his – he cannot survive in the absence of chakra. Favorite food? He was incapable of eating while I knew him.
Insofar as this list is a vaguely ordered one, this marks a dividing line in Akatsuki's strength. The three I will name beyond this point are particularly dangerous. The reason is not intrinsic to any technique or combat ability they have. Rather, it's because they are actually intelligent. Naturally, this has made them more effective in the pursuit of effective techniques and combat abilities, but that is beside the point. Perhaps Deidara may mature to this latter category in time, but this list obviously only represents my recollection, and he was an idiot when I was in Akatsuki.
Regardless, the following three are approximately capable of overpowering a jinchūriki in single combat.
In direct combat, Kisame is highly threatening. Formerly of Hidden Mist from the Hoshigaki Clan, his bloodline grants him exceptional chakra reserves, and among Hoshigaki, he is supposedly an outlier still. He possesses Water, Wind, Fire, and Earth Element, and though I have not seen him use it, I would not be surprised to hear of him knowing Lightning as well. He is very likely the greatest user of Water Element alive. His ludicrous reserves lend well to his use of ninjutsu, as he is capable of using jinchūriki techniques that would be too costly for any ordinary ninja to cast.
As jinchūriki cannot be summoners, his natural reserves would make him the greatest summoner in history were he not crippled by an exceptionally poor choice of summon clan. Still, he can summon nearly-freely, and he does so at every reasonable opportunity. Like the majority of Akatsuki, he is capable of creating and adjusting ninjutsu, and he has adapted the Shark Clan's many ninjutsu. They hold little back from him, including techniques stolen from various coastal summon clans. This constitutes a weakness, as he is exceptionally close to the Shark Clan and prioritizes their wellbeing in some ways above his own. Still, he may have hardened his heart after triggering my deadman's switches.
Overall, he follows a similar path as Jiraiya. Exceptional basic combat skills, backed up by best-in-class ninjutsu for every situation. His direct combat skills are among the best in Akatsuki, so I won't linger long on his combat ninjutsu – you may assume he has a technique suited to any situation. His sensory techniques particularly impressed me. He exceeds even me in that regard – he has near-theoretically perfect vision, hearing, and smell. He can separately sense water and chakra around him to a massive range, making him an exceptionally powerful blindfighter and exceedingly difficult to evade. Frustratingly, he can also avoid chakra sensing.
Of course, his chakra sensing is not truly his own. In truth, Kisame represents not one member of Akatsuki, but two. His weapon, Samehada, is no mere weapon crafted from chakra metal. It is a genuine relic from the age of the old gods. Uniquely, it is sentient and likely sapient of its own right, though I am unsure how long its memory stretches into the past. It would not surprise me if Kisame had, over his decades by Samehada's side, learned ancient secrets and techniques from it. At the bare minimum, bonding with the weapon has expanded his chakra reserves further, granted him the ability to sense and drain chakra, and massively improved his physical resilience, even including minor regeneration. I suspect Samehada itself acts like a second mind for Kisame in combat, indicating threats and analyzing enemy techniques while he is preoccupied with fighting, though I have no evidence for such. The weapon has native chakra drain of its own that is far, far more powerful than any bloodline ability – to the point that ninjutsu are destroyed with a single swipe of the weapon, and even jinchūriki can be drained unconscious in less than ten seconds. While called a sword, the weapon is really more of a club. Specifically, a club made out of several dozen sharks fused together. Yes, this is absurd. It is also reality.
Being a ninja cut of a similar cloth to Jiraiya, he has no fatal weaknesses. He cannot lose an endurance fight with his natural reserves and drain, and his senses make him exceptionally challenging to lead into traps. His relative strength in Water Element and relative weakness that I assume exists in Lightning suggests that he is probably more susceptible to Earth techniques than others, though that provides little comfort. I suspect the simplest way to kill him may simply be to overpower him.
I believe he enjoys crab.
Konan is quite the mystery. She told me her history, of course, but she had a habit of sharing just enough to raise questions without granting answers. She is formerly of Hidden Downpour, the village succeeded by Hidden Rain, and born of a clan long dead – perhaps the provenance of her paper ninjutsu, perhaps not. If I recall Jiraiya's stories correctly, she's our junior by a decade in biological age. Her Elements are Water, Wind, and Earth, and she has a relatively mature suite of techniques in each. However, she has specialized in paper-style ninjutsu, and rare is the occasion where she is forced to use techniques of another element.
She is quite the genius of ninjutsu creation and perhaps even my equal in that regard. However, where I have spread my attention amongst the elements and beyond, she has focused single-mindedly on her paper-style ninjutsu. She has several particularly lethal tools as a result.
Firstly, she can activate seals remotely. This was a source of no small headache to me. In the conflict where Hiruzen died, I believe Jiraiya had approximately a tenth of a second to cast his seal-pouch away before it exploded on his hip, and she was the reason why, at Nagi Island, we three stayed on the ground where a moment of focus from Konan wouldn't cause us an untimely fall. As it was, a key objective was to keep her too occupied to let her drop our people to their deaths with a thought. Naturally, this is not solely a disrupting tool. She rapidly arranges and activates seal arrays mid-combat. She is a jōnin-level sealmaster and consequently has access to a variety of tools. If you recall my note on her intelligence, you will understand why she is exceptionally deadly as a result.
Secondly, she can duplicate seals. She is limited to seals of her own creation, thankfully, but her skills and general strength have won her a modest library of seals, and she has prioritized seals that are effective en-masse. In truth, Deidara may not even be the member of Akatsuki capable of causing the largest explosion – Konan is able to appreciate the simplicity of applying tens of thousands of explosive tags to solve a problem.
Those are perhaps her two most dangerous tools. The remainder simply make her lethal in ordinary combat. Her Dance of the Shikigami technique has let her leave behind her ordinary biology in exchange for bonding her chakra to a vast quantity of paper. This makes her immune to approximately any physical or single-target attack, and her secondary Elements are well-equipped to handle area-of-effect attacks in Fire, Lightning, or Water that could damage her paper swarms.
The extent to which she meaningfully has a body at this point is questionable – she is a chakra entity at least a hundred and fifty meters wide that is anchored to paper swarms within its area, and which can quickly take control of new paper. The swarm's range can be extended by her Paper Clones, which are jōnin-tier combatants approximately as unkillable as the original. She survives while a sufficient quantity of paper exists in range – and she is of course careful to ensure that several hundred sheets tunnel underground when a fight commences. Frankly, I have no clue how Jiraiya's suicide technique killed her. I suppose it is trivial to mention, but her transformation does grant her the best flight in the Elemental Nations that I know of.
In terms of psychological weaknesses, unlike the rest of Akatsuki, she deeply cares for the village of Hidden Rain. Like Sasori, she is highly dependent on active chakra effects for her existence, and were her technique to be countered, she would be forced into her vulnerable, biologically normal body. Unlike Kakuzu, who did so out of a stagnant uncreativity, she appears to return to her original form out of sentimentality. In those times when she was feeling sentimental, I recall her being partial to broiled fish.
That leaves Akatsuki's most dangerous member, Uchiha Itachi. Formerly of Hidden Leaf, of the Uchiha Clan, his specialty is Fire Element, though he also has Wind and Water. He may well have additional elements – I only saw him use Wind and Water Element when pressed, and he is wary enough about sharing secrets that he could well have Lightning or Earth or something beyond. He never trusted me. He never trusted anyone but Pain.
Devoid of context, the whelp would not be particularly threatening. His genjutsu would threaten even Kage, and he has a range of supplemental skills that would out-do the average jōnin – technique modification, Fire-style ninjutsu, weapons skills, hand-to-hand combat, et cetera. These are relatively ordinary capabilities, and would not be noteworthy on their own.
His specific abilities with genjutsu are unclear. I will list an incomplete list of non-mundane capabilities he has demonstrated, with the caveat that some may be due to his bloodline, some may be smoke and mirrors, and that he likely has other abilities that I am unaware of. Total mind control, allowing him to puppeteer ninja into fighting their allies with a glance. Placing genjutsu without eye contact, on an enemy whose eyes were closed. Illusion genjutsu that bypass esoteric senses, such as chakra sensing. Ignoring a jinchūriki's genjutsu-resistance. Casting genjutsu via his summons.
He is a summoner, and despite several periods of rocky relationships with his clan, has earned their trust and support in many ways. For any capability he does not have, he has an appropriate summon to provide that capability. Furthermore, the Crow Clan's ninjutsu is not particularly powerful as far as Seventh Path ninjutsu go, compared to clans such as Boar, Toad, or Condor. However, they have perhaps the broadest range of esoteric techniques, which, in the hands of an intelligent opponent, is particularly dangerous. Naturally, his close relationship with his summons also grants him effective flight.
He uses clone techniques extensively. Apart from his odd Crow Clones, he is exceptionally proficient with Shadow Clone and capable of effectively using the technique in combat. His reserves are unexceptional, so I infer that he has somehow modified the technique to consume less chakra, or to let him control the way that chakra is divided between himself and his clones. His clones may not benefit from his bloodline, but they do enjoy the remainder of his prodigious skills, particularly illusion genjutsu.
The Sharingan is not an ordinary bloodline. Setting aside its unique origins, its capabilities are broad and nearly impossible to counter. For instance, its precognitive ability is unprecedented in all that I have seen in my travels. Alone, combat-precognition would perhaps make the Sharingan the strongest bloodline on the continent. Instead, it permits him to perceive nearly anything, including chakra. It grants him access to dozens of combat-relevant ninjutsu. It improves his memory and combat-speed cognitive processing.
His physical bloodline has been augmented further by some esoteric procedure, visible as an odd change to the pattern within his eyes. Setting aside the ordinary Sharingan capabilities above, which are strengthened by his augmentations, he has gained a number of new capabilities as a result. He can produce a genjutsu called Tsukuyomi, which applies extreme time dilation to the cognition of himself and the target. He can produce a ninjutsu called Amaterasu, which is undodgeable, unblockable, and inevitably lethal. As an aside, I note that investigating these names would be profitable if you truly wish to learn this world's deepest secrets. Like Pain, he can control Tailed Beasts.
These abilities are chakra-hungry and self-damaging when overused, which is unusual for bloodlines. As a consequence, he was substantially crippled at the time of Nagi Island. He had substantially weakened his bloodline and ordinary vision by overuse of his augmented abilities, and had additionally somehow contracted a rare disease that weakened him further still. Seeing as Sasori was restored to full health despite his extensive self-maiming, I have to assume that Pain's final technique has similarly granted Itachi his health back. I expect him to act far more carefully with his new body.
Perhaps the final note on why he is exceptionally dangerous: Itachi is particularly attentive to the secrets of the world. I have to assume this relates to whatever revelation caused his particular exit from Leaf and the unusual modification he made to his own bloodline, but I suspect that he spent years single-mindedly pursuing long-forgotten ancient truths. I do not know what he learned, nor have I seen him use ninjutsu retrieved from such places. However, I am certain he attained great power from his adventures – at the very least, old relics of which I know of two. First is a sword, summoned from the liquid within a gourd, which seals away the souls of that which it touches. Second is a mirror which can absorb and reflect any ninjutsu.
His primary weakness is his shallow chakra reserves. He has many techniques which are highly valuable – summoning, high-grade Fire-style ninjutsu, mind-control genjutsu, bloodline abilities, shadow clones – and finite reserves. As a result, he is quickly exhausted as he fights. I suppose his fanatic loyalty to Pain is also a weakness. I would have thought him too intelligent to follow Pain's apocalyptic plans, but I suppose the Eye of Insight will not let him see through that particular blind-spot.
Apart from that, I know of no weakness in his fighting style or personality that could be exploited to kill him. I do not say this readily, so know that I mean it when I say it – Itachi Uchiha is stronger than me.
