Chapter VII

Disclaimer: Naruto belongs to Kishimoto, this challenge belongs to dracohalo117, and whatever is left belongs to me.

Naruto looked faintly puzzled. "Whirlpool? I've never even heard of it."

"You wouldn't have," Kushina said, each word rolling off her tongue and falling with a great heaviness into the stark quiet of the room. "It was destroyed some time before you were born."

"Your village was destroyed? I didn't know that could happen."

"That's because you grew up in a large village, rather than a small one. I mean, Uzushio was small, but it was pretty powerful and influential as small villages go," Kushina said.

"Who destroyed it?"

"Iwa and Kumo teamed up."

"Wow." Naruto stared at Kushina. "Do you resent them at all?"

"Not really. It was before the start of the Third Great Shinobi War, quite a long time ago. Don't get me wrong, I grieved for my village and hated the attackers, but I wouldn't hold a grudge with members of Iwa and Kumo who are blameless in that respect."

Naruto nodded. "I think I understand. Did you- I mean, what was it like in Uzushio?"

Kushina shrugged. "I don't remember much. My last few months there didn't exactly make for good memories. Neither did the several ensuing years as I settled into my new home."

"Why not? What happened?"

"I was picked on a lot by other kids, and I didn't do much to encourage friendships. I used to beat up the kids who picked on me."

"Why did they pick on you?" Kushina hesitated for the briefest moment.

"Mostly because of my red hair. I used to hate it and hate the people who made fun of me for it."

"You used to?"

Kushina sighed. "There was a boy-" she broke off. Naruto was grinning madly. "Stop that," Kushina said, her irritation slightly marred by the affection in her voice. "It wasn't like that."

"It sure sounds like it was like that," Naruto said, still grinning.

"Only here's the thing, it wasn't," Kushina said. She took a deep breath. "The truth is, I didn't even like him at first. I though he was such a sissy that he would never make a good ninja. And on top of that, I felt like he was lying or copying me when he said that he wanted to grow up to be Kage."

"Why, was that your dream, too?"

"Yes."

"Did it work?" Kushina gazed at Naruto's rapt face.

"Not yet it hasn't, but it's only a matter of time."

"Alright, go on, what about this boy? What did he look like, anyway?" Kushina absently ran a hand through Naruto's hair, but he shook it off impatiently. "You're stalling," he whined.

"He looked a little like you, I guess. Blonde. Blue-eyed," Kushina said. The words were quiet, but she was proud that her voice did not shake. After all this time… "In any case, I was a genin when it happened, just barely graduated. I was kidnapped by shinobi from Kumo."

"Geez, you just couldn't catch a break. What did they want you for?"

"Something about my chakra, I think."

"How did you escape?"

"What makes you think I escaped? He, the boy I was telling you about, he followed me. He tracked me by the strands of my hair that had fallen while the shinobi carried me, and when the time came, he rescued me."

"I bet you didn't hate your hair so much then," Naruto said.

"I still would have done if he hadn't told me he thought it was beautiful."

Naruto let out a sigh of the sort one gives at the end of a good story. "And the two of you lived happily ever after?"

"For a few years, yes."

Naruto frowned. "What's that supposed to mean? Where is he, anyway?"

Kushina swallowed. "He's dead, Naruto," she said softly. "He was killed the day our son was born."

Naruto looked alarmed. What kind of a happy ending was that? "Where's your son?"

"That day- that day, he disappeared. I searched for months, but I never found him, never heard what became of him."

"So you stopped looking? Just gave up?" Naruto sounded like he was trying to hide his anger, but it wasn't working, spilling over and making his words shake slightly.

"Of course not. I have kept an ear out ever since, investigating anything that sounds like him. But my life moved on, and I bet his has, too. He grew up without me, and I doubt he'd want me in his life now."

"I doubt it," Naruto said quietly. "As one who grew up without parents, I can say that if your son is any sort of a reasonable guy, he wants to meet you as much as you do him."

Kushina met Naruto's eyes, and for a moment, it looked like his heart was breaking. She knew that she could look little better. Wordlessly, she pulled him into a hug.

"At least we found each other," Naruto said thickly.

Kabuto stared through the window, disgusted. What was this? Kushina had been instructed to teach Naruto fuinjutsu, not let him waste time crying on her shoulder about how horrible their childhoods were. Kabuto wasn't even the least bit grateful that Kushina at least had the decency not to mention Minato's name, the Kyuubi, or Konoha. He knew she had lied a little when she spoke about always searching for her son. Kushina had been locked up in these labs since shortly after the Kyuubi attack.

He wondered what it felt like to lie to your son, a boy, moreover, who had just confessed to missing you without realizing it.

Kabuto was slightly unsettled when Orochimaru approached him next, talking as if it was time to administer another injection. It had been a scant two and a half weeks since the last one, and Kabuto pointed out that Naruto's body, while now entirely adjusted to the addition of Kakuzu's threads, could probably use a more significant rest.

Orochimaru stared at him, eyes narrowed. "You just said that he had completely adjusted. You even told me that his chakra reserves are vast and growing daily to account for the amount he uses each day just to move and survive. What objection could you possibly have?"

Kabuto hesitated. "Which sample were you considering on this occasion?" he asked at last.

In response, Orochimaru held up a vial. Kabuto recognized it. It was the mixture he had been asked to make of the blonde hairs Orochimaru had gathered the day he had fled from the Akatsuki.

Because Orochimaru had not had the time to study the abilities of that boy when they had made their brief 'acquaintance', Kabuto had been forced to do more research on this sample than usual. It had taken him a while to find information on the jealously guarded Iwagakure kinjutsu that was responsible for the mouths on the boy's hands. The jutsu was said to allow the user to knead chakra into materials, raw, malleable materials being the most effective, like clay.

From the information Kabuto had found suggested that the boy must have been at least a former member of the Explosion Corps, meaning that he probably possessed the Bakuton Kekkei Genkai, a bloodline that allowed those who possessed it to cause objects they came into contact with to explode.

Although giving Naruto the DNA would most likely not give him the mouths on his hands without the special kinjutsu to go with it, Kabuto still had misgivings about handing Naruto, who was in essence a prisoner and an experiment to boot, the ability to make things explode. Who am I kidding? He can do that with exploding tags anyway. This way is just faster and a little more dangerous.

While the research had not made Kabuto feel better about administering such a potentially destructive ability, it did give him an idea about how to train Naruto to use it without alerting him to the fact that Kabuto was performing horrible human genetic experiments on him. After all, Naruto didn't have to know that the kinjutsu was not responsible for allowing him to make explosions. Also, if Kabuto played his cards right, he would be able to kill two birds with one stone and teach Naruto about two of his abilities without raising suspicion.

Kabuto moved to administer the injection, hesitating a moment before injecting it into one of Naruto's tenketsu. Kabuto was no Hyuuga, but he was an accomplished medic already and could at least identify a few major tenketsu. He figured that without veins to inject, he could at least make sure that the liquid would be spread by the boy's chakra flow. The Kyuubi would have to deal with regulating it from there.

"So what you're saying is that this new jutsu will give me mouths on the palms of my hands? That doesn't seem physically possible."

Kabuto smiled patronizingly, knowing that it would annoy Naruto. "If you do not want to, I will understand, Naruto. I just thought you would like the little side effect of this jutsu allowing you to explode things…"

"So, about this jutsu, how does one go about performing it?"

Kabuto allowed himself a rare smirk, going through the hand signs with Naruto. Kabuto himself was not going to implement the jutsu. Orochimaru had not given him specific orders to this end, but he got the feeling that his employer would be less than pleased were he to possess Naruto only to find that Kabuto could use the same techniques as he could. It was a superiority complex thing, and Kabuto preferred not to screw around with it.

Naruto was successful, easily implementing the jutsu after only a few repetitions of the complex hand seals. He raised his hands, staring at the gaping slashes. "I thought you said that they would look more like mouths," he said.

Kabuto's smile fell. "Excuse me?" He took one of Naruto's hands and examined the opening. By all accounts, it should have resembled a mouth, with a full set of teeth and a tongue. Instead, it was more like a two-inch-long slit in the skin, which a bit of probing forced open, revealing a sort of muscular sac. It would probably work as these things normally did, kneading chakra into whatever material was placed inside, but Kabuto figured that either the Kyuubi's interference or the atypical nature of Naruto's physical makeup caused the jutsu to yield the unusual results. Better not to tell Naruto that.

Kabuto reluctantly released Naruto's hand, thinking quickly. "I exaggerated slightly when I described the effects as looking like 'mouths'," he said.

"Okay," Naruto said slowly, in a way that meant he probably wasn't more than half-listening. He was intent on opening and closing the slits on his palms without touching them. It seemed to get easier and easier the longer he practiced.

Kabuto rapped the table impatiently. "Pay attention, Naruto. The jutsu will allow you to knead your chakra into substances, shape the substances into whatever is the most effective form is for your purpose at the moment, and then make the materials explode. For now, practice with this." Kabuto passed Naruto a small amount of clay.

Naruto took it, the clay immediately disappearing into the slit across his right palm. Naruto's face took on a look of concentration. "So you're saying that the chakra-infusion should work automatically?" He extracted the clay a minute later. It looked the same, but when Naruto set a small amount on the floor and made the seal that Kabuto had shown him, it blew up, leaving nothing but the faint smell of burning and scorch marks on the floor. Naruto grinned. "This is so cool."

"Why don't you try to shape the clay inside of your hands while it is being infused with chakra?" Kabuto suggested.

For a while Naruto experimented, forming coils and cubes and pyramids. Each time, the different shapes caused different blast patterns, and sooner or later, Naruto began to talk about using explosions to launch or redirect projectiles, about how it would only take a few well-placed smaller explosions to bring down a wall that most would need a larger explosion to destroy.

Finally, Kabuto took out a stack of paper and scrolls. "The jutsu works on more than just clay, Naruto."

"Really?" Naruto asked, tearing his eyes away from the little model clay puppet he was playing with. He was testing if he could control it without chakra strings if the entire thing was infused with he chakra, anyway.

Kabuto pushed a sheet of paper toward Naruto. "Try this."

Naruto made a face. "Why do I need to use this to blow up paper? It would be far more efficient and precise to use an exploding seal. That way, I know for sure how large the explosions will be."

"I think you are missing part of the point of this, Naruto. It's not just about the explosions. It's also about putting your chakra into objects. Try putting it into this sheet of paper."

Naruto dubiously folded it into the slit in his palm. After a few seconds he made a face again and dropped it onto the table. He and Kabuto looked at it. Naruto giggled and Kabuto shot him a look.

"What?" Kabuto asked.

"I made a paper snowball," Naruto said.

Kabuto sighed, exasperated. "Maybe I should have given you the scrolls first."

"Scrolls? What scrolls?" Kabuto pushed them across the table. Naruto unrolled one. "Origami?"

"Think about it, if infusing paper with your chakra means that you can control it, it could have endless uses."

"Okay, if you say so." Naruto still seemed skeptical, but he took another sheet of paper as he pored over the scrolls, looking for a suitable form to begin with.

"So what's this idea of yours?" Kushina asked, bemused. Naruto had shown her the 'mouths' on the palms of his hands and explained what the jutsu allowed him to do.

"Well, since you taught me sealing from the ground up, showing me the different parts and limiters, I was thinking about the components of seals themselves."

Kushina nodded encouragingly. "Go on, this sounds promising."

"I was wondering if there might be a way, particularly with this new jutsu, for me to edit seals that how already been completed."

"How do you propose to do that?"

Naruto took a sheet of paper. "Here, I'll put my chakra into this so that I can show you. I haven't tried it before, so it's just theoretical at this point."

Kushina watched as Naruto put chakra into the paper before taking up a pen and drawing a simple exploding seal. Naruto grinned at her before carefully setting the tip of the pen to the pad of his left index finger, quickly drawing a small seal and duplicating it on the tips of the other four fingers of his left hand.

He set down the pen and explained. "You see, having my chakra in the paper I'm working on probably doesn't make a difference because it's my chakra in the seal anyway. If this works, I'm going to try with a seal that has your chakra rather than mine. Now, I designed the seals that I drew on my fingertips to allow me to alter the physical make-up, and therefore the purpose, of a seal when I channel chakra through them. If this entire thing works, I am going to ask Kabuto if I can tattoo them on, like the training weight seals, maybe with invisible ink, too, on all ten fingers."

"Alright, you sound like you know what you're doing," Kushina said with a grin. Honestly, she had never heard of someone trying this before. "Show me."

Naruto channeled chakra to the seals, lowering his index finger to the paper and carefully sliding it along. As Kushina watched, the seal began to change, lines dividing or changing, thinning out when more ink was required elsewhere in the design. It seemed as though the changes responded more to Naruto's will than anything, although he did occasionally make some of the changes by sliding one piece over the another place with the tip of his finger. When he finished, Kushina recognized the product as a basic storage seal. It had none of Naruto's clever variations applied to it, so it was unmistakable.

Kushina picked up a spare scroll, glancing at Naruto for permission. "May I?"

He gestured for her to go ahead, practically grinning from ear to ear and flushed at his success. Kushina made a handsign and pushed the scroll into the storage seal. It worked just as it should have, the scroll vanishing. Kushina picked up the paper, noting how the weight of the paper had not changed at all and the seal looked to be perfectly crafted.

Kushina smiled. "This is an amazing achievement. I've never known anyone else to so much as think of trying something like this."

Naruto beamed. "Thanks, Kaa-sensei. If you don't mind, I'd like to try with one of your seals, something that wasn't drawn using my chakra. I need to see if I can alter someone else's seal without infusing the paper with my chakra."

As it turned out, with some experimentation, Naruto did end up needing to infuse the paper in order to alter Kushina's seals. It was hardly a setback, Kushina said, and Naruto didn't feel too bad about it.

When Naruto showed Kabuto, he agreed to let Naruto tattoo the seals onto his fingertips with invisible ink, letting Naruto do the ones on his left hand. Naruto mistrustfully allowed Kabuto to do the ones on his right hand after Kabuto pointed out that Naruto could always edit the seals of Kabuto made a mistake. Kabuto didn't make a mistake, as it happened, but Naruto checked over his work, going through one by one, looking for mistakes.

In order to edit Kabuto's work, Naruto just channeled chakra to the tips of his fingers, that being enough to allow the seals on his left hand to work.

Kabuto cautioned Naruto against tampering with the weight seals, placating him by allowing him to raise them one setting and reminding him that he still had to work on his taijutsu practice for the day.

Kabuto had persisted in occasionally bringing Naruto along on autopsies to keep both of them from getting bored. As time went on, Naruto would help out, handing Kabuto a tool now and then when the chakra scalpels weren't enough. Naruto would talk, too, making observations, and Kabuto usually took the time to explain what he was doing to Naruto, going through medical procedures with him and showing him which pieces of physical evidence showed what about how the person lived or died.

Kabuto had refrained from showing Naruto any of the failed members from Orochimaru's experiments, in case Naruto should wonder where the unusual symptoms came from. Kabuto had stuck with showing Naruto only those who had died in Otogakure, most of them shinobi, but with the odd civilian thrown in. This time was slightly different, however. Kabuto really had to get some work done, and while civilian deaths were all well and good, his employer cared more about why his experiments were dying than why his villagers were.

So Kabuto watched Naruto out of the corner of his eye all the while that he was dissecting the newest corpse. Naruto's eyes kept straying to the man's shoulder. Sometimes Naruto would frown, crane is neck a little better to get a better view, and then subside, looking annoyed. Finally, Kabuto let the green haze fade from his hands, licking dry lips.

"What's bothering you, Naruto?"

Naruto looked up from gazing at the man's exposed rib cage. "What?"

"You're clearly bothered by something. What is it? I thought you were over your distaste for autopsies."

"I am," Naruto said quickly. "It's just… that seal on his shoulder…" He wrinkled his nose in distaste.

"What about it?" Kabuto asked, keeping his voice steady.

"It's… it's just so poorly designed!" Naruto burst out. "What was this guy thinking, putting something like this on himself? There are one or two parts that I don't understand, but he was clearly too heavy-handed with some of these limiters. I can only assume that he was going for enhanced strength and speed, but he ended up overtaxing his heart and muscles way too quickly, not to mention his brain-! He must have died painfully." Naruto stopped. Kabuto was watching him. "I can stop…" Naruto said awkwardly.

"No, it's okay," Kabuto said quickly. "This is interesting. How would you change it?"

"Well, since you ask," Naruto said stripped off the rubber gloves he wore. He channeled chakra to his fingertips, lowering his right hand to touch the seal on the man's shoulder. He frowned, remembering that he could not change a seal that was not written on a surface infused with his chakra. Instead, he covered the entire seal with his palm, the edges of the 'mouth' there contracting and expanding around the skin on which the seal was written to work chakra into the cold skin. When Naruto was satisfied, he went back to work with his fingers, the shape of the seal slowly emerging under his ministrations. After a minute of silent concentration, Naruto removed his hand, pulling the gloves back on.

"That's how I would change it," Naruto said. "Or at least, I left the parts I didn't recognize alone, just moved them around a little. In any case, that would have taken care of the other parts." Naruto stared at the seal for a moment before giving a grim smile. "Too bad I was too late."

Maybe not as late as you think, Kabuto thought.

Orochimaru considered the sketches that Kabuto had drawn and the notes about the changes Naruto had made. "And he said that the seal was overtaxing their muscles, heart, and brain? You're sure?"

"Yes, Orochimaru-sama."

"Thank Kami my design happened to offend the boy's delicate sense of craftsmanship," Orochimaru said dryly. "Maybe now I can get somewhere with this project."

"Keep in mind that there were parts that he did not edit," Kabuto said quickly. If this draft failed as badly as all of the others, Kabuto did not want to be accused of withholding vital information of the changes Naruto had made.

"Yes, I can see that," Orochimaru said, standing up, notes in hand. "You are dismissed, Kabuto. This is good work."

Kabuto hesitated slightly before standing up to leave. Orochimaru never let any of his lab assistants watch him work. The labs were Orochimaru's domains and he was just paranoid to want to be the only one to oversee all. Kabuto left, quietly closing the door and pausing outside just long enough to hear the lock click.

"Watch this," Naruto said with a grin. He opened his hand and a paper crane lifted from his palm, flapping around the room. Kabuto gave a smile of encouragement.

"Very good, Naruto."

Naruto ignored the patronizing tone. Or he didn't hear it. Sometimes it was hard for Kabuto to differentiate when Naruto was excited.

"That's not all I can do, I've just been trying to figure out if I can apply this paper thing to puppets. For some reason, I have more control over paper than I do with other substances. After all, I can make anything explode as long as it's the least bit pliant so that I can put chakra into it, but not everything I put chakra into moves as easily as paper. Maybe because it's so light?"

"Maybe," Kabuto agreed. He didn't cross his fingers. Mad scientists did not cross their fingers when they lied. Mad scientist? Really? Could I be more melodramatic? "What were you saying about using paper to augment your puppets?" Kabuto asked quickly.

Naruto shook his head. "That's the thing, unless I'm facing an opponent who's afraid of paper cuts, I don't see how this will be helpful in battle."

Kabuto thought for a moment. "Have you considered combining it with genjutsu instead?" He asked. "After all, you've already used it to augment your sealing."

"True, and no, I haven't tried."

"Then you ought to get on that."

"Can I practice genjutsu on you?"

"No."

"Please?"

"No."

"Pleeeeeaaaaaaasssssseeee?"

"No, Naruto."

Naruto heaved a sigh. "Fine, I guess if you're determined to make this no fun there's no stopping you."

Kabuto brooded. Once again, Orochimaru-sama was ignoring his dire warnings, rushing things along far too quickly. It had been a scant month since Naruto had been given Deidara's DNA infusion, but Orochimaru, his judgment slightly clouded, though Kabuto would never say as much aloud, by the impending release from his current skin, had decided that he could not put off the next infusion any longer.

Kabuto, for one, was at a loss as to how he was supposed to hide it if Naruto's hair turned silver. He supposed he could always dye it, but Kushina would notice and ask Naruto about it. All Kabuto could hope for was that Naruto's body would not be altered any more than it already had been. That Naruto would become immortal and that was all. Hopefully it would not actually be necessary for Naruto to believe in the pagan god Jashin for the immortality to take affect. That was straying into the world of religious fanatics, and Kabuto already had to deal with one too many fanatics in his life, thank you very much.

As it had been such a success that last time, Kabuto repeated the injection procedure, emptying the syringe of the Jashinist's blood into one of Naruto's tenketsu.

Kabuto allowed a good number of hours to pass before testing the abilities. For this purpose, Orochimaru had 'donated' a good pint of blood from one of the prisoners down in the cells who was slated for execution and/or punishment. Kabuto did not know which prisoner it was. He had not asked. Orochimaru had not told him.

Kabuto dripped a little of the blood across Naruto's lips, holding a hand over his mouth rubbing his throat to make him swallow. The effect was apparent almost at once. Naruto's skin turned black as pitch, with paper-white stripes standing out against the black. Kabuto had drawn out the correct diagram in the blood of the prisoner on the table before placing Naruto over it in the first place, so he need not have worried about that.

Kabuto surrounded his hand in the comforting green glow of a chakra scalpel, lowering it until it was six inches from Naruto's skin. He hesitated. Would Naruto's scales prevent jutsu from coming into contact with him in this state? Only one way to find out. He lowered he hand, just barely grazing the inside of Naruto's wrist enough so that a bright well of blood seeped from the point of contact. Kabuto let out the breath he hadn't known he was holding.

It seemed that Orochimaru had been right, that the cursed state had caused Naruto's body to revert to one of flesh and blood. Kabuto watched, waiting for the injury to heal. When it didn't, he rubbed out a section of the diagram. The state was broken and Naruto's skin resumed its usual color. The injury dwindled and disappeared within the minute, and when Kabuto passed a healing jutsu over Naruto's skin, he felt the reassuring prickle of the boy's scales sucking away at it.

Kabuto sat down, pulling out a clipboard. He had gotten into the habit of not waking Naruto from these drug-induced comas until he had finished marking down all information. The logic being that questions occasionally came up while Kabuto was in the process of writing his reports and it would be very poor outlook indeed if Naruto was not already sedated and strapped down for Kabuto to pursue those queries.

Kabuto scribbled furiously- he would go back and rewrite any shorthand afterwards. Orochimaru would get the revised copy and Kabuto would keep the original notes.

At this juncture, Kabuto caught himself looking vacantly at Naruto, restrained and unconscious. Kabuto glanced back at his notes, frowning a little. Unfortunately, he could not test whether the Jashinist's DNA actually ensured Naruto's immortality. As much as his fingers itch to reach down and just sever Naruto's windpipe- one slice, he was on so much morphine he wouldn't even feel it- he was on strict orders to do nothing the sort.

Even if this exercise in immortality did not succeed and Naruto was still as mortal as he was from the start, he would still be a marvel, absolutely unique. Orochimaru would inhabit him for as long as was humanly possible, and if it turned out that he was flawed, that he could die, they could not risk killing him before absolutely forced to that conclusion by circumstance. Naruto might or might not have been immortal, and unless they were one-hundred percent certain that he was, they could not test and make one-hundred percent sure. In case he wasn't. Catch-twenty-two.

Kabuto raised his head to gaze meditatively at the boy strapped to the lab bench. An experiment. Less than human, but if this all worked, so much more and so, so worth it.

A/N: What's this? A six-month break and then two chapters in one week? Insanity! In any case, it's not that insane, as this chapter is a bit shorter than I generally try to aim for in this story. In any case, yup. Here you go. Actually, I'm pretty proud of this chapter, short though it may be.

Summary time!

1) Kushina pours her whole life story into Naruto's lap, conveniently never mentioning Minato's name, Konoha, or the Kyuubi. And she probably feels pretty bad about that.

2) Kabuto recognizes the lies. He's perceptive, he would. He's the one who told her to leave that stuff out. Remember?

3) Orochimaru insists that Kabuto give Naruto an injection of Deidara's DNA and Kabuto, as usual, scrambles to come up with a cover story for Naruto. If Naruto had more blanks in his memory, Kabuto didn't hear of it.

4) Kabuto teaches Naruto the kinjutsu from Iwa that is actually responsible for the mouths on Deidara's palms. In doing so, he passes off the effects of the jutsu, the effects of Konan's DNA and the effects of Deidara's DNA as part of the jutsu. Just to be clear here, Naruto is not able to infuse his chakra into things that are non-malleable. In addition, the amount of ink or other material with which the seal is actually drawn limits the size of the changes. However, as the lines can be thinned a significant amount to stretch farther, this will not be a size restriction most of the time. In addition, puppets are in here somewhere. They have not dropped out of this. ALSO, Naruto's mouths are different from Deidara's. They just are. Pick a reason, I listed a few. AND, Naruto, not being interested in making his clay sculptures into 'art', sticks to mostly geometric forms.

5) Naruto comes up with a way to edit seals, his and others', but the latter only if they are inscribed on a pliant medium. In addition, I'd like to make clear the difference between infusing seals with chakra as they are drawn or at the moment of their activation and kneading chakra into things. Seals use symbols (during creation) and handseals (during activation) to focus the chakra being put into them to be used for specific ends. The way Naruto infuses surfaces with chakra is more like putting into the surfaces the latent capability of being manipulated.

6) Naruto tattoos the seal-manipulation seals on his fingertips with invisible ink.

7) Naruto is present at the autopsy of a filed experiment of Orochimaru's and ends up editing and improving the cursed seal.

8) Keep in mind that Naruto may not have made the seal any better than it was in canon, he may just have brought it up from a near-total-failure to canon standards. Maybe.

9) Naruto's focus on genjutsu is nothing major, but it's still a thing, too. It's still there.

10) Kabuto gives Naruto Hidan's DNA and confirms that Naruto can use Hidan's Cursed State. However, he can't test if Naruto is immortal in case Naruto ISN'T immortal and Kabuto accidentally kills a valuable experiment.

Well, that about wraps it up. If you could kindly review with your comments, reactions, etc, it would be greatly appreciated!

Pax.