Illimitable - The Child of the Sannin

by TwoChimpsWithoutOne

From man he was made, possessing nearly all bloodlines in the known world, and a soul stolen from the world beyond. Raised by the greatest trio to have ever lived, this child of uncharted power will change the world, for better and for worse, unraveling secrets kept buried for thousands of years, and rewriting the history of events past and to come. Sapere aude; Dare to know.

97. The Road Goes Ever On And On -P1-

Chapter 96

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Tactics and Strategy

True to Dante's word, the newlywed Senju pair were given some days to rest and celebrate their union. No one knew how exactly they spent their time off, but the fact that they were never seen after that night and that Kushina, despite judiciously applying sound and shock-absorbing seals to her walls, still felt compelled to break her lease, pack all of her things into a few storage scrolls, and move in with her fiance weeks ahead of time, said much to those who were curious enough to care.

For all of its bittersweet ending, the wedding and the closest thing the New Hotness had to a honeymoon would still remain one of the greatest memories Hibiki Senju would ever have. Waking up each morning - or, as was sometimes the case, the afternoon - with the woman he got to call his wife in his bed was something that he had no context for in either of his lives. He couldn't explain the feeling that welled up in his chest whenever he saw the ring on her finger, but it never failed to make him smile.

Unfortunately, the four days they had been allotted came and went much too fast for either of their likings, though at least this time Hibiki's summons came by civilian messenger, who just left the scroll at their doorstep with a knock, as opposed to an Anbu who would have broken in.

Konoha's voluntary alliance with Suna, and forced alliance with Kiri, though that did comprise of three of the remaining four Great Countries, was fighting against Kumo, and every other village out there. This wasn't a battle they could win, they couldn't wage that war on every front - but what they could do was hold the line, and this was what Dante explained today.

"Up until now we've been fighting this war as we've fought the two previous... And I've been doing that on purpose." Dante explained, "I've specifically been replicating orders and deployments that wouldn't seem out of place for my predecessor until now as a means of deceiving the enemy villages out there into thinking that he's still in power. Initially I had done this with the intent of stopping and pulling back at the end of the year, but with Katsuo dead, I'm accelerating those plans to now.

"The simple fact of the matter is that until some of the minor villages start taking too many casualties and bowing out, the offensive actions of this war will be primarily fought with our active-duty Jonin corps. In order to keep our borders secure against the overwhelming alliance we're being faced with, our Chunin and Genin will be tasked to capacity defending our border posts and patrolling Fire Country, leaving only our Jonin to strike out and make counterattacks," Dante explained, "this scenario is exactly why I built your team the way I did." Dante explained, leaning back in his chair - his wide-brimmed symbol of office hanging off of a lamp on the side of his desk. "So you three could perform the work of ten times your number, of similar rank."

Hibiki raised an eyebrow, "Chunin?" He prompted, realizing where this was going.

"Jonin." Dante corrected, that Hibiki had taken the bait. "I'd only been partially kidding at your wedding, Hibiki. I'd been partway through the paperwork for you two before I had to let it go to join you."

Suboro cracked a smug grin, stretched his arms, and popped his back. "Man!" He yawned exaggeratedly, "took you guys long enough!"

Hibiki rolled his eyes, and Noboru took the reigns, bowing to their Sensei and Kage, "thank you, Sensei. We shall not let you down."

Hibiki exchanged a glance with Suboro, and the buzz-cut Jonin had a wild look in his eyes, knowing that Hibiki had more than a few jokes he was considering making, and simultaneously baiting him into making them, and trying to convince him not to. Hibiki just snorted, and turned back to Dante, who continued.

"To be perfectly blunt, there will be times when I throw you at entire villages alone." He said, "obviously your goal will not be to win in these situations, but rather to do as much damage as possible before retreating. To make the enemy pay as inordinately high a price as possible before they fight you off. Alone, each of you three are strong enough to have multiple bingo-book pages dedicated to you, but together I do not hesitate to say the only team stronger, would be the Sannin." Dante explained, leaning forward on his desk. "But there is a catch.

"We know what the circumstances were that started this war. To the world at large, we are the aggressors, here, and because of this reason, no one will listen to us when we speak. It will not be until the war is over that we will be able to share our intelligence on Katsuo and prove that we did not intentionally start this war. That it was his machinations that sent everyone down this path." Dante explained, "so my standing orders are that we only kill when we defend the Land of Fire. In all other situations - when ever we go on the offensive - we maim. We injure. We cripple, but whenever possible we avoid killing." He explained, "we're doing this for two reasons: To show now with our actions what we will say after with our words, and similarly to warn." He folded his hands together, "we're fighting this war with one hand tied behind our back. We're holding back. This war will not be a quick one, but I am hoping that in time the message will be clear, and hopefully before the decade is out, we want them to worry about what will happen if and when they make it to our walls."

Noboru frowned at this, "when, Sensei?"

Dante nodded, "when." He repeated. "Not even counting Katsuo and his group, Iwa's remnants made it to our walls. Even if they all went to just one village and joined it, that village will have sent messengers out to their allies. Konoha's location will be an open secret by the end of the year, and I anticipate at least one major siege, if not several. I would hold it off as long as possible, but there will inevitably come a point where an enemy force will overwhelm our border patrol and make for our village walls, and while I am working out plans with the Kaguya clan for this eventuality, the fact of the matter is that it will happen, and I want them to worry about what our reaction will be when it does."

Suboro leaned back, lips parting as he nodded, "oh." He drawled, "you're going to keep one of us here." He said.

Dante grinned, and cast a sly glance to the Hyuga and the Senju, "and you two wonder why I promoted him first."

"Yeah." Hibiki grunted, "'cause he knocked some poor girl up and needed the Jonin money."

Suboro went red at this, and Noboru looked away like he usually did when he didn't want the Kurama to see him trying not to smile. Before the first among them to reach the top rank could point at Hibiki and start arguing, Dante cleared his throat, and the three calmed down.

Suppressing a smile himself, Dante continued, "yes. Unless you three are all jointly needed - which I do not foresee the need of except in the instance of assaulting Kumogakure or a village Hashirama gave a Jinchuriki - one of you will remain here, at all times."

Hibiki raised his hand, "and how are we handling the fact that I can functionally be everywhere?" He asked, before nodding to his left and right, "or the fact that the both of them could probably do the same thing if I showed them how?"

Dante, however, shook his head. "While many are starting to figure out how you make your clones durable, Hibiki, no one knows how you're able to just make so many, and teaching them would require time we don't have." He explained, "and it's because of the way the war started that I actually want you to cut back on their usage. Like it or not, your name is mud to most of the world, and a great deal still, views you specifically as the reason the war started in the first place." He explained, "so as tremendous a tactical advantage your clone techniques are, we don't want your face everywhere. Much the opposite, I want to put forth the idea that we've put the hammer down, so to speak. Imposed limits."

Hibiki nodded, "that even Leaf isn't very fond of what I did." Which, if one turned their head and squinted, wasn't exactly wrong as it was, and would only grow more true as time went on and the bodycounts grew higher. Sure, people right now were willing to understand that a lot of what was happening was a result of Katsuo's machinations and Danzo's poor decisions, but once the fighting really started? Once peoples' sons, daughters, husbands, and wives started dying? Hibiki's reputation probably wouldn't survive, and the more time went on, the more Konoha at large would share the opinion that he was, if not wholly then at least in part, responsible for all of it. "So limiting me to single-battlefield appearances would get other villages asking what changed and why, and eventually might even get them to ask questions regarding my innocence in the matter." Damn, Dante was playing just as long a game as he was, although they had two different methods of execution in mind.

Dante nodded, leaning back.

"Thus why you were making it appear as though Danzo were still leading the village." Noboru nodded in understanding. "Such that a dramatic shift in our activity could then prompt our enemies to ask 'why?'... And then slowly send them down the path towards being more open to the truth."

Again, Dante nodded, and then looked to Suboro when he cleared his throat.

"Does that..." He began, "does that mean we'll be arresting him if we win?"

Dante sighed at that, "that... Is a question we'll have to answer when we get around to it." He admitted, shrinking a bit, "I have plans, but as with all things, they'll take time." He said, "bringing us back around full circle. For now, Hibiki, I want you to dispel your clones fighting in Lightning country." He nodded to the Senju, who nodded back and prepared himself for the mother of all hangovers later that night, when he'd do just that and all of those memories would come flooding back. "Noboru, you will be the first to go back out. Tanigakure has been harassing shinobi passing through the Land of Rivers to the Land of Wind, and I want it stopped..."

It wasn't long after that, that Team Dante, all freshly ranked Jonin, was released from their Sensei's office. Noboru bid them farewell to go and pack his things for his deployment, and after a few more minutes, Suboro bid Hibiki farewell so he could dispel the shadow clone taking care of Kurenai. By the next day, Noboru and more than a dozen Jonin were gone, and the village's shinobi circles were abuzz as almost all of the shinobi that had been deployed were being pulled back to Konoha's borders, the shinobi of the three corps were being given their orders, and, upon realizing that, barring an emergency that required his intervention, it would likely be some months before Hibiki left the village, he realized that Dante had managed to slide essentially confining him to the village right under his nose.

It made sense, of course - now that Katsuo was dead, they had to deal with the aftermath of his and Hibiki's conflict, and his legacy, both of which were largely the same thing: The war that Hibiki, and through him, Katsuo, had started. Still, realizing that Dante could be sly if he wanted made Hibiki smile, even as he took a moment to consider that these years may turn out to be much longer than he anticipated.

Fortunately, that was only an issue for Hibiki specifically - the Alpha who lived his life in Konoha. Elsewhere, the days would be busier than sin and would flow like water. The state of the world right now was a direct result of Hibiki and Katsuo's conflict, for worse and for better. Intentionally or otherwise, Katsuo had provided Hibiki the tools he needed to try and put things back together, and perhaps even set things up such that they would even be better off, long-term. Dante was worried, and rightfully so, that the war would last for a very long time, but he had no idea the opportunities the Senju Head had, and the plans he was executing.

It took an extreme amount of self control for Hibiki to not rush forward these plans and end the third Shinobi War, but he was assisted at least by the understanding that doing so would guarantee their failure. If he rushed forward, he might be able to end this war, but it would do nothing for the world at large. To wit, it wasn't just about winning this fight, it was about winning all the next ones, too. It would take time, time to get people's minds in the right place, time to put the pieces together in the right way, and time to make everyone realize that Katsuo hadn't simply gone to ground, but he had gone period. Fortunately, with the death of Katsuo, the spacing of Zetsu, and the closure of the Loop, time was something that Hibiki had, and the time he needed wasn't even remotely close to what Dante speculated may be necessary.

The biggest problem was Hibiki himself. Katsuo had played his hand well, and for all the world knew or cared, the war had begun because of Hibiki. He'd had his fun, had sixteen years to live his life free of consequences, but now was the time to pay the piper. At sixteen, he was an adult to this world, and with the years from Back Home on top of this, he really had no excuse.

The Senju head was willing to bet that Katsuo had never planned on Iwa being obliterated, rather that Hibiki and Minato's attack on the country would have been seen as an invasion, but the fact remained that the war had begun because Hibiki had attacked a foreign country, ostensibly under orders, and killed a lot of people. Even Konoha's allies weren't happy about that, but through some combination of Danzo and, later, Dante's political miracle-working, they appeared to at least be willing to accept that Hibiki hadn't been umprompted, and the damage had been accidental. What their response would be when everything was over was anyone's guess, but the point remained: The world was pissed, and as such, without any outside influence, this fight would only be one that ended with Konoha, Suna, and Kiri either trashing every village, or everyone fighting so much and so hard that too many died, or they became too tired of the fighting.

Dante was right: Left alone, this war would last for a long time. Perhaps until Hibiki's mid twenties, to maybe even his forties, and that was unacceptable.

Fortunately, this wasn't being left alone - Hibiki had an ace up his sleeve. Of every one of the side effects of his and Katsuo's conflicts, of all the bodies they'd buried and lives they'd ruined, one accidental diamond had been found in the rough, and that was Hibiki's best chance at stitching everything together. There would be scars, but they would fade in time.

With the attention of the Elemental Nations on the countless major and minor Hidden Villages, no one's eyes were on what would become the three biggest players in the end of the war: Yuki, Tetsu, and Ame. The lands of Snow and Iron, and the Village hidden in the Rain. That was Hibiki's long game, but the emphasis here was on long. As powerful as they were alone, and as formidable as they were together, if they entered this war now, the effect they would have would be minimal, and would also be completely counter to what Hibiki wanted to have happen: He wanted the war to end, not to just add more fighters to the chaos.

So, while the hidden villages tore at each other, Yuki, Tetsu, and Ame, appearing to all the world as a strange alliance shrouded in mystery, would bide their time and build their power.

Unfortunately: It all boiled back down to the fact that this would take time. His only precedents for a situation like this were the World Wars, Vietnam, and the War on Terror - the former two for the sheer scale of the goings-on, and the latter two for being one of the few wars Hibiki could remember off the top of his head that lasted so long that everyone involved were just sick of it by the end. The World Wars lasted four and six years, respectively, while Vietnam and the War on Terror had stretched on towards twenty years. Obviously the latter wasn't an option, but Hibiki was willing to hedge his bets on a timeframe more reflective of the World Wars being more applicable here, considering the fact that this, by virtue of all of Humanity being stuck on what used to be Japan, was one, and the people fighting it were superheroes. Three years at the earliest, six at the most.

And for huge chunks of that, Hibiki was largely going to be under travel restrictions. No more leaving the village whenever he wanted, no more flying off the handle and fighting the strongest people alive, no more permeating the village with clones past training grounds, none of that. The best Hibiki could get away with would be using the Hiraishin to go to NORAD, and from there the rest of the world, but even that wasn't much, considering the fact that the only place with direct utility to him was the mountain base. The rest of the planet was ruins held in stasis by the chakra in the biosphere, the only point of interest being Tarzan, and Hibiki had no fucking clue where he was, and Amerigo, but there wasn't much he could think of that the Eagles could provide him beyond combat support, now that he and Orochimaru were worried that he might not react well to the real-effing-deal senjutsu. There was the utility of having a lot of depopulated areas where he could send a few clones to train, full-tilt, but that would be for clones, and not the Alpha.

He would have to find some other way to keep busy.

---

The Bone Weavers

The village practically underwent an upheaval as its entire shinobi corps was presented with the new reality of their war, and how their new Hokage wanted to fight it. As more and more deployment orders were sent out, plans that had initially been spread over the course of the next several months were condensed down to just a few weeks, and the great weddings that many of Hibiki's friends had had planned were turned into small, private affairs with only their closest friends and family. The sentiment was soon propogated that the Senju marriage was both the beginning and the ending of an era - a turning point in modern history, as there really wasn't one like it afterwards.

Both Fugaku and Mikoto as well as Hiashi and Akane had cancelled theirs entirely and instead had simply signed paperwork, the latter due to Team Eiji being given deployment orders, with Dai and Aoi as their witnesses, and the former due to a mutual agreement between the two that it would simply be better to hold off on a big celebration until things had either calmed down or the war was over, and with Hibiki and Minato as their witnesses. Of their entire group of friends, only Minato and Kushina actually still had a formal wedding, and Hibiki suspected it was due primarily to Kushina desperately not wanting to give up that part of her heritage. It was due to this heritage that their wedding wasn't nearly as big as Hibiki and Dai's - which the both of them were quietly thankful for. Uzumaki weddings, befitting of their culture, were familial affairs before anything else, so Minato and Kushina invited those they considered family - namely, Hibiki, Dai, Jiraiya, Tsunade, Mikoto - who by necessity brought Fugaku - and Kushina's Genin team. The whole thing was over and done with inside of six hours, and Hibiki had never seen Kushina cry so much since Mito or Uzushio, though fortunately these tears were of joy, and not grief.

Unfortunately, Kushina was deployed the very next day, and Minato ran off to do some training he wanted to keep secret from Hibiki, citing the rivalry half of their friendship, and as such Hibiki found himself alone for the first time in longer than he could remember. He wasn't in a position to send clones out to bug any of his academy friends - Fugaku was training in clan techniques and preparing for deployment, Chouza was getting his affairs in order such that there was a line of succession in the Akimichi clan in the event that he died before he found a wife and produced an heir, Shikaku was up to his elbows in his new job in the Jonin Corps, and - well, he wasn't really friends with Inoichi. Of the Sannin, Hibiki was able to occupy some time in the hospital, but not alongside Tsunade, as, due to his new strategies, she had decided to ramp up her war on the Hokage and the Genin Academy over revising their curriculum. Orochimaru had been deployed to the north to replace the now absent Hibiki clone army, and the shadow clone he had left behind in the village was busy with Hidan. Jiraiya was his last resort, but the man had vanished to operate in his spy network.

Thus, while he'd saved the day and gotten the girl, in the aftermath of that, Hibiki was alone. With nothing to do, even training didn't make time pass for very long, but fortunately, he found something to occupy his time with a week and a half after everyone had been deployed.

And it came in the form of the albino bone-user, Arjuna Kaguya, finding Hibiki in a training field, currently throwing down against a Rinha-assisted clone of one of the Undead.

When Hibiki saw that Arjuna was there, he dispelled the clone of Aeneas and, after cooling himself down with his ice bloodline, greeted the Kaguya heir with a grin, a roll of the eyes, and, "how the hell do you people always manage to know which one of me is the Alpha?" He then threw his hand behind him, indicating the village as a whole. "I've got, like, two more training grounds I'm using right now. How'd you know I was at this one?" Dai always seemed to know, Orochimaru always seemed to know, Anbu Wolf always seemed to know, and now the former-barbarian was getting in on it.

Arjuna grinned, "I would argue..." He said in his usually soft voice, "that us being able to identify your Alpha is a good thing, for emergency purposes. If you were to know our method, you would correct it, and then in such an emergency, we may not be able to find you."

Hibiki, breathing hard as his heart slowed down, eyed Arjuna for a moment, before he nodded his head back. "Oh." He drawled, "you guessed and got lucky."

Arjuna snorted, his smile widened, and he shrugged. "Sometimes that is enough."

Hibiki chuckled and approached the Kaguya heir, giving him a handshake, "to what do I owe the pleasure?" He wasn't terribly surprised that Arjuna hadn't been deployed - Konoha couldn't just throw all of their heaviest hitters out at one time, after all, and he similarly wasn't even sure if the Kaguya was even a part of the Shinobi rank structure to begin with.

"I simply wanted to thank you, before I left to perform my duties."

Hibiki frowned, "thank me for...?"

"Defeating me, back then." Arjuna supplied, with a friendly nod. "Had you not, our clan would not have joined your village, and we would still be purposeless wanderers, seeking naught but battle." He explained, "now, we've a purpose."

The Senju head blinked, "forgive me if I'm wrong, but aren't we having a conversation we already had almost ten years ago?"

Arjuna nodded to the side, conceding the point, "that was primarily to get us on the same page." He explained, "my father and I just left the Hokage's office. Much like how the Uchiha have the Military Police, and the Hyuga has its Perimeter Scouts, we have determined the purpose to our clan in service to Konoha."

The hell is a perimeter scout? Sixteen years, all the secrets to the universe, and I still hardly know how the damn world works. Although, if he were to be perfectly honest, how much had David really known about how the United States worked? This shouldn't be that surprising, but he at least got the idea of what Arjuna was getting at: The Kaguya clan had had its time to adapt to life in Konoha, and now, beyond adding their weight to its economy and introducing Kaguya shinobi to their forces, they were going to start pulling their weight, and considering the timing of this conversation, Hibiki had an idea of what such a role might be.

"And what would that be?" He asked, while making a mental note to look and see what his own clan's 'job' had been back when there was more than one blood member, one adopted member, and one married member.

"The members of my clan with our bloodline are joining the shinobi corps." Arjuna explained, "anyone thirteen or higher are being given provisional Genin status and are being attached to a Chunin until they can operate on their own. Anyone younger will be going through the academy. The rest of us - well." He cut himself off, "those of us with chakra, at least, are being used as a defense force, shoring up the Daimyo's samurai forces, as well as being prepared to respond to threats to Konoha."

"There are enough of you to do all that?" He asked, bewildered, as sending out enough Kaguya to operate as shinobi, train as shinobi, man the borders, and act as what was essentially the Konoha National Guard would mean a lot of them were being thrown to the wolves. How many would even be left?

Arjuna looked a little embarassed as he responded, "as much as we've... Mellowed out, these years, there are still many of us who crave battle... So Hokage-sama is indulging that."

"Oh." Hibiki drawled, nodding - the entire reason Arjuna's clan was in Konoha in the first place was because old habits died hard.

Arjuna's clan was one where half of it loved to fight for fighting's sake, and the other half had wanted a place to settle down. Arjuna was saying that just because they'd gotten their way, that the latter group didn't not want to fight. Most, if not all, of the clan had volunteered for this job, and Dante had just figured out how to split the difference: The more bloodthirsty Kaguya could go out and defend the borders, while the ones that had wanted to settle down could stay and fight behind the walls.

"I assume you're being sent out, then?" Hibiki was actually kind of surprised, he hadn't pegged Arjuna for the type.

Arjuna nodded, "I am a Genin, it is my job." He said, producing a hitai-ate, with a thin smile.

Hibiki chortled, shaking his head and patting the Kaguya heir on the back. "Well done." He said, "I'd say good luck... But I'm pretty sure if there is one person I can count on coming back, it'd be you, eh?"

Arjuna joined him, laughing softly and nodding. "Yes." He agreed, "I suppose you could." He said, "if I may?" He added, after placing the hitai-ate back in his pockets, and when Hibiki baded him continue, he said, "you trained with us for a time after we integrated. You helped us adapt to our new status and in turn we taught you some of our ways of the Shikotsumyaku... But the barbarism that afflicted my clan is still inherent in many of its older members." He trailed off, face wrinkling up as though in pain, trying to find the right words, when he finally continued with, "I... Must admit I would not be overly mournful, if the more bloodthirsty of my clan were to lose a great number during this conflict." He began.

Whoa! Hibiki blinked, taking a step back. "Oh yeah?" He said, barely managing not to let his shock show through in his voice, but not able to hid his raised eyebrows.

Arjuna winced, "it sounds awful, I know... But there are few ways to teach my people a lesson than to have us be humbled through battle. While rare, there have been times over the last eight years when my father was challenged over his right to rule and his decision regarding our settling down, and without fail it came from the ones who would have, if their will be done, not come here at all unless it was to fight." He explained, "these are the same ones who were chomping at the bit, and were completely overjoyed, to be ordered to the borders, and be there for the main bulk of the fighting." He gulped, before finally laying it out. "I suspect that a majority of them, when they arrive, may seek out battle, and may die, as a result... And as terrible a loss as that would be, I do not overly fear such an outcome... For the survivors would be humbled, and those who remained beyond them would be the ones wise enough to know the value of having a home. Who were, on some level, able to control their urges."

Still astonished, Hibiki responded bluntly, "that's fuckin' harsh, dude."

Arjuna nodded, not even denying it. "Yes." He said, "but as I said... I think the outcome may be for the better. To put another way... Those of us who remained would be much more domesticated, and willing to adjust to village life in the long-term."

"And where do I fit into all this?" Hibiki asked, not able to puzzle together that part of the equation.

Arjuna straightened up and said, "you are rather well known for your vast intelligence... Many think you even eclipse Orochimaru-sama in that aspect."

Hibiki's face finally started to settle down, his shocked expression being replaced by a smirk as he caught Arjuna's intonation, "you don't?"

And Arjuna was honest, he shook his head. "I know you are more intelligent than most, but you appear to me a man who is content to live each day as it is, and learn only what interests him... Whereas Orochimaru-sama is interested in the learning itself." Hibiki didn't mention how he was partially responsible for that, and after a momentary pause, Arjuna kept going. "I already spoke to him, before he left, about my hope, but he said he was working on his own pet project regarding a bloodline, and had no time to add mine to his workload."

"First I've heard of it." Hibiki murmured, not having to wonder what had prompted Orochimaru to start looking into bloodlines - he knew what, it was the only one of the Undead to still be standing! - but rather wondering what one had caught his fancy so much that he would reject getting to look at Arjuna's, which he would have figured would be second only to the Sharingan in how interesting it was and powerful it could make someone. "So you came to me?" Though he would admit the Sharingan was more of a long game, whereas the Shikotsumyaku was more of an instant-gratification thing.

Arjuna nodded, "I would ask, if you can, to determine what exactly is the stressor that awakens our bloodline." He said, finally getting to the point. "As you can guess, while such knowledge would undoubtedly be valuable to my people, before Konoha, we were too barbaristic to settle down enough to try and determine such a thing ourselves... And the fact that many of my people fear its power to begin with, didn't help."

Hibiki folded his arms, nodding to the side. "It's a stupid powerful bloodline." The bloodline on its own made them Wolverine by default, but add its more esoteric uses, chakra augmenting the body, and the various abilities granted by chakra? A sufficiently trained Kaguya could be border on being unstoppable. Whether they knew it or not, the Kaguya had been severely limiting themselves by remaining the sole stateless clan for all those years.

"In a perfect world, I would have your results be applied after the war. I would have the children who knew and lived nothing but the wonders, love, and... Relative peace of Konoha, then be able to awaken their bloodlines and become guardian defenders of this wonderful place." He said, looking up to the sky for a moment, eyes glazing over and his smile returning. "But..." He sighed, shoulders slumping. "The Hokage rightfully fears that this war will last for a long time... And with every attack on this village, more of the Kaguya I would want to survive above the others, may fall to their baser instincts, die, or both." And then, after a moment, "and in such a scenario, I would genuinely fear that too few of my people would live to continue the clan beyond another generation or two." The albino genin added, gaze falling to the dirt beneath them.

So he's trying to turn Sparta into Athens, and is worried that doing so in the middle of a war might not be the best time to do it in. Hibiki nodded, "so you're worried that even the more tame parts of your clan will seek out glorious deaths instead of long lives when the fight reaches Konoha, and hope I can figure out how to trigger your bloodline's manifestation, and use that to ensure your clan survives this war." Oh Fugaku and the Military Police would have a lot to say about that, and Hibiki said as much. "You realize the entire point of the Uchiha military police is to protect the village from the people who protect the village." He began, "if, all else equal, I figure out what the conditions are to manifest the Shikotsumyaku... As strong as they are by default, your clan would upset that power balance something fierce." He explained, "one Sharingan would not be equivalent to one Shikotsumyaku." A renegade Kaguya, or even just one that had committed a crime, if they decided they wanted to resist arrest, could do a lot of damage before they got put down. It would take a disproportionate number of policemen to do so - and may even require full-on shinobi on top of that! The only Sharingan that might be strong enough to counter an angry enough Kaguya would be one that had evolved a Mangekyo, but Hibiki wasn't sure how many existed beyond his and Dante's, and with every fight, said Uchiha would lose more and more of their sight. In solving this problem, Hibiki would create another, and potentially have to solve a completely unrelated one, which may create many more.

Arjuna grimaced, knowing Hibiki was right, but still struggling with the knowledge that due to their culture, even with Konoha to call their home, it was a real possibility that his clan wouldn't survive to the end of this war. Hibiki obviously couldn't tell him about his own plans - Arjuna wasn't even close to being in the know - but that was besides the point. Hibiki felt for him, he did! But there were reasons beyond plot armor that Wolverine and even Deadpool were so dangerous, add chakra on top of that and it just became ridiculous.

"Everything needs a check and balance, Arjuna." Hibiki explained, "the shinobi corps has the military police, the office of the Hokage has impeachment, I have my team, the major clans have the minor ones, Anbu has the whole corps..." He trailed off. "I understand why you want this, but one Kaguya with their bloodline is dangerous enough on their own. Add a formal shinobi education, and training, on top of that? That's playing with fire, man."

Arjuna nodded, then looked up, his expression one of an epiphany, "could not the Hyuga serve that function?" He asked. "Beyond us watching our own... With their ability to block chakra flow, they perhaps more than even us, would be the best equipped to handle renegade members of my clan."

Hibiki had to admit he didn't think of that, and let out a long breath, leaning his bead hack. "Oh... Fuck me." He breathed.

He'd been the head of his clan for... What, a week? Two? A month? He wasn't going to count the time he spent at relativistic speeds, and all the Loops, those didn't count. Despite this, despite how much he loathed the political game and did not want to play it, how much he'd wanted to drop it after being forced to play it at his wedding, here it was, making itself known it was here to stay. He was a Clan Head, more than that he was the head of the Senju Clan, and more than that, he was Hibiki Senju, with all the power and prestige he'd built for that name.

Like it or fucking not, he had to start playing.

"Did I say something wrong?" Arjuna asked.

Hibiki shook his head, "no, no, just... Lamenting." He grunted, "that is definitely a possibility, but there are some issues with it, too." He began, "you'd essentially be asking the Hyuga to take on a role similar to that which the Uchiha already have. Even if they don't take the next logical step and start trying to join the Military Police, the Uchiha may still see it as encroaching on their territory. Stepping on their toes." He explained, "now, they'd let it happen, of course - for the safety of the village. But that would still be a wound to their pride, and both clans are a proud bunch, Arjuna. They've had a rivalry for a long time over which dojutsu is superior, and this wouldn't help that." Again, solving this problem would create more, which would themselves just create ever more, ad infinitum. In medicine, this was known as treating the symptoms, and not the cause. How could Hibiki cut off the cascade of problems to arise after this? How could he treat the cause? Or, if one wanted to word it differently, how could he just kill the Batman?

Holy shit I'm considering this. He realized, after a moment.

Arjuna clenched his jaw nervously, turning away from Hibiki and looking at the treeline at the edge of the training grounds, and Hibiki sighed. Arjuna was tearing himself up over this, and was finding himself wanting in the face of this vast problem, and Hibiki understood why: This was a man who had lived his entire life as a barbarian being made to deal with societal and political intricacies that had formed over decades and centuries. He was woefully unprepared for something like this, and with the prospect of his people's survival riding on him being able to figure it out, his lack of ability was killing him.

Hibiki sighed, and placed his hand on the thin Kaguya's shoulder, "I'll tell you what." Hibiki offered, prompting Arjuna to look at him over his shoulder, pale eyes shining with hope. "I'll look into it. I'll see what I can learn." He'd meant to do some studying on his own bloodlines anyway, ever since bargaining away the Rinnegan and tossing Zetsu into orbit, now he just had a bigger reason to do so. "We can deal with this one problem at a time, yeah?" He said, "all I ask is for you to really consider what you're trying to accomplish here. In terms of raw strength, you have one of the most powerful bloodlines out there, and you yourself are worried about the..." He hesitated, before settling on, "domestication, to use your word, of your clan. While I do my research, really consider the wisdom of giving them this power en-masse."

Arjuna let out a long, thankful sigh, and nodded. "I will."

---

Experimental Fun Time

Hibiki had known for as long as the name 'Kenichi the Graverobber' held meaning to him, that he had a lot of bloodlines in him, but he hadn't looked at the man's notes once since the time he'd called the Swift release his 'Flash' bloodline. Similarly, while he'd known he'd had a lot of bloodlines in him courtesy to the mad scientist, and while he'd cheated and gotten access and usage of all of them right before killing Zetsu, he hadn't really been able to thoroughly experiment and dissect them at all - because right after Zetsu, he'd killed most of the Undead, and pretty soon after that was the whole Time Loop business, and any and all of his free time during the buildup to Roran had been spent trying to figure a way out of it, so Hibiki functionally had an arsenal of weapons that he only knew the bare minimum of in order to use, and maybe a few tricks he'd come up with either on accident or by necessity.

Some of them were fascinating to imagine the implications of. He'd already played with the Dark Release, that let him absorb and manipulate chakra, and the Rinha blood, that let him essentially become someone else, down to a genetic level. Alone, those two were amazing weapons - the former would functionally allow his clones to go on indefinitely in a battle, as long as they could just swipe a little chakra from their opponent, and the latter was indispensable for infiltration purposes, as Hibiki had already long since proven with Ame, but together, Hibiki already knew that they could allow him to put truth to the fiction of him being able to copy bloodlines - at the cost of being difficult to maintain, and having to replace ones that weren't compatible - but further than that, he theorized and was eager to test that he might be able to use them to absorb any ninjutsu thrown at him, and if not master, then at least figure out the proper usage of, and when combined with his Sharingan, he could witness someone cast a technique, absorb it with the Dark Release, and then use the Rinha blood to instantly analyze it and use it effectively. If it actually worked like that, he could effectively eliminate a problem he'd had for sixteen years - that being tiring himself out and potentially injuring himself by replicating and using a poorly understood technique mid-battle.

Then there was the Smoke Blood, which he remembered had hangups, but if he could find a way around them, he could effectively become intangible. If ever he ran into an opponent that knew or could find a way around his Swift blood and still hit him, his Smoke blood could render the attack useless. Then there was the Magnet release, effectively turning him into Magneto just to start, but with enough time and effort he may be able to go even deeper, pull the protons and electrons out of the very air around them and, while using it as a means of generating lightning was useless considering the number of lightning techniques he knew, he could potentially use it as a means of ripping apart atoms, albeit he would have to be careful, as that was also how fission bombs worked. There was the Storm Release that allowed him to create and manipulate lightning as though it were water which, when combined with his magnet release, could effectively immunize him and anyone around him to lightning-based attacks, allow them to fight freely in thunderstorms, and even power a flux capacitor without having to time a bolt of lightning hitting a clock tower! There was the Steel release that let him turn his body into some kind of organic metal, and he'd already proven that he could combine it with his shikotsumyaku and turn his bones into metal even if they were already outside of his body. Combined with his Magnet release and Hibiki might be able to approximate railguns, and combined again with the shikotsumyaku and he might be able to make extremely durable, metal weapons, that could channel chakra better than anything else on the market. There were his Ice and Fire bloodlines which did exactly as it sounded, the former of which could allow him to change a combat environment immediately to something his opponent wouldn't be ready for just to start, and may be able to allow him to reach absolute zero at its extreme, and the latter of which could, if combined with the former and with his magnet release, potentially let him create and contain plasma of solar temperatures - effectively allowing him to ignite a fusion reaction with his bare hands!

There was so much he had in him that he had yet to play with, and with his Terran education there was so much he knew he could do with them. If any of the Undead had died around the same time he had, or even if they hadn't and had instead just had an education like his, he wouldn't have won his war, period.

And here he was, shirking them all to return to one of the very first he'd gotten.

Ain't life grand?

His first stop had been the Senju Archives. In the whole world, there were three copies of Kenichi's notes, the master copy was held in the Kage's archives and, as was everything kept there, was constantly under guard by Anbu, and then two more copies were held under lock and key by the Senju clan, and Orochimaru in the R&D division. The former was the easiest for Hibiki to get access to, because, while it may not necessarily be common knowledge, he was, in fact, a Senju! A pretty important one, too!

Normally, Clan Archives were kept in the clan compound, but with the Senju having been so severely depopulated by the first and second Shinobi Wars, and with their compound having been donated to the Kaguya, Hibiki and Tsunade had voluntarily moved them to underneath Tsunade's house. A couple hundred shadow clones and the Swift bloodline had turned what they had feared would be several weeks of work into just a few minutes, and in the time it took to cook a cup of ramen, there was a whole underground library underneath Tsunade's house, with a plethora of fuinjutsu designed by Hibiki, Kushina, and Minato, to ensure that only Hibiki or Tsunade could get in, and since Tsunade was splitting her time between the Hospital and her war on the Academy's curriculum, Hibiki was able to peruse these archives in peace.

Appropriately to one of the oldest and most powerful clans on Earth, there was a lot in here. The Senju were very thorough, with enough scrolls dedicated just to their history that Hibiki was pretty sure Hashirama had had to donate the trees and wood to make that paper personally, left they deforest a good section of the village, and that was just their history. There were entire libraries of the Senju's pre-Konoha knowledge on other clans, other bloodlines, and the various jutsu they had run across, and all of their intelligence and dissections thereof - such as it was in a world where scientific knowledge was rudimentary at best, and nonexistent at worst. Hibiki had read some of those archives before when he was younger, but the amount of times he'd been disappointed severely outnumbered the times he'd been impressed. It was almost universally observation of effects, and for the ninjutsu and genjutsu, entire volumes of trial and error before they were able to replicate effects. That may sound all well and good, and useful in its own rights, but the failures were largely limited to, 'tried this, didn't work. Tried something else, didn't work.'

No explanations of the failures, no studies into what might be learned from the failures, no possible means of applying what was learned in the failing to something else, nothing but raw trial and error until they got what they wanted, and then the explanations came in. There were only a few exceptions to that rule, and perhaps appropriately, they were all written by Hashirama and Tobirama Senju - and the former much more than the latter. They were the only ones who appeared to understand that there may be knowledge even in failure, so they wrote down everything. Tobirama's notes on the Hiraishin had not only been what had helped Hibiki and Minato master the technique, but had actually been what a lot of Loops had used as reference when developing the Flux Capacitor, before they'd tapped that well dry. Past that? Beyond raw 'this technique does this,' 'this is how we managed to replicate the effects,' 'this is how one can properly use it,' and 'these are the side-effects,' there was an appalling lack of why in these archives, and it infuriated Hibiki as much as it served as an illustration for why Earth hadn't crawled back to modernity in a thousand plus years.

Fortunately, as was Isaac Newton, Euclid, Albert Einstein, Nikola Tesla, and Stephen Hawking before him, Kenichi the Graverobber was different. Different enough that Hibiki genuinely thought it was a crying shame he'd gone down the path he had, and had been killed in addition. If he'd applied that mind of his, his way of thinking, his Uzumaki-level mastery of fuinjutsu, to mankind as a whole, the world would be a different place. His would have been the shoulders later shinobi-scientists would have stood on, and if Anbu hadn't just up and killed him on sight, Hibiki would have relished the chance to be able to speak with him, as being in the same room as that man probably would have been no different to the legendary names of the past. Similarly, whenever the subject came up, Hibiki bemoaned the fact that the codices for Kenichi's fuinjutsu were gone and likely never to be found, because he'd written the jucier parts of his manifesto and his notes in his fuinjutsu language.

How the Soul Seal worked, all the trials and tribulations to perfecting it, the techniques he'd invented to sample and then create more of the various bloodlines he acquired, the techniques he'd created to build a human body from scratch, to fuse all of those bloodlines, to ensure the body would naturally continue to produce that 'golden blood' instead of just diluting and eventually replacing it entirely with whatever the bone marrow would create over the years, the most interesting and pertinent - to Hibiki - data, all of that was locked behind his codices, and what was left was his findings on various bloodlines, how he'd acquired them, and - of course - his sometimes arrogant, sometimes mad, usually entertaining, ravings on how much he wanted to truly create life. Hibiki truly suspected that all of the data on the various 'Succesful' Undead, leading up to him, Kenichi's white whale, his magnum opus, was right there, too. The various combinations and concentrations of blood, what he'd learned from Tarzan that led him to Katsuo, and from Katsuo to Aojiroi and so on, the fine details beyond just the list of numbers and failures leading up to his, Hibiki was certain all of that was there, right next to the more technical data.

It was times like this that Hibiki regretted giving Minato the tesseract to destroy. The sheer amount of abstract problems he could solve with that thing was mind boggling - here, for instance, he could have slipped into fourth dimensional space and watched Kenichi create his fuinjutsu codex, as he was creating it. Hell, he could have hopped into the madman's lab, SFN'ed a copy for himself, and then hopped back out before the man could blink! But as he always did, Hibiki reminded himself that that thing being destroyed was for the better, and those exact thoughts were why. Besides, as much as there was a literal goldmine of books, scrolls, and notes in the dark corner of the Senju Archives, locked away behind a codex that may never get translated, Hibiki wasn't here for that.

Written in the Common Tongue were Kenichi's less sensitive notes. Not even remotely as interesting as the stuff Hibiki wanted to crack into, but useful in their own right. Kenichi was a lot like Hibiki in the regard that when he did his studies, he first just conducted experiments and collected raw data - much of that being what was left written in the Common Tongue - before refining it and describing exactly what his findings were in his Fuinjutsu language - with most of that being what was hidden away, and the few examples that weren't being what Hibiki picked the evidence for this habit from. Relevant to today was that they explained his observations of the various bloodlines he'd witnessed during the first and second wars, what knowledge he could glean of their clans, dissections on their corpses, and - most useful to Hibiki right now - were his studies on the bloodlines themselves.

Some years after he'd created Tarzan, Katsuo, Aojiroi, and a few others by literally stitching together body parts as though he were a modern Victor Frankenstein, he'd created a plethora of techniques that allowed him to biologically clone any of the blood, bone, and tissue samples he acquired from the battlefields, to build human bodies out of scratch, and even to accelerate their aging processes. The lattermost techniques were universally reserved for his more experimental Undead - the ones that he didn't even bother sealing souls into - as he didn't want to potentially ruin a genuine attempt by prematurely aging it, and leaving the mind of an infant in the body of an adult. He used these aging techniques in conjunction with the blood-cloning and body-creating techniques to experiment on the bloodlines he'd acquired and determine if they would be compatible with the other bloodlines he'd picked out for his genuine attempts at creating what would become Hibiki, or if their side effects or even the powers they granted were too detrimental or too useless to even bother.

The Shikotsumyaku - the Kaguya bloodline - was one of the first bloodlines he found. It was third on the list, with the first one being the Envir blood, and the second being Uzumaki blood - and immediately after the Kaguya blood came the Uchiha blood. Kenichi, in his notes leading up to acquiring the Kaguya blood, had spoken endlessly about how much he wanted it - how much he vaunted its healing abilities and how it would allow his creations to survive anything. When he finally got the blood, there were multiple pages of him just gushing about it - apparently the Kaguya he'd gotten it from hadn't even died in the first place! He'd just taken so much damage that there was 'a river' of her blood staining her battlefield, and how glad he was to have acquired it, and how strong it would make his creations, and blah blah blah, it was just him ranting.

The good news was that there was an entire scroll dedicated to Kenichi's studies on introducing the Kaguya blood to what Hibiki had started to call 'Zombies' to differentiate them from Undead like Katsuo, Aojiroi, and himself. The bad news was half of that scroll was written in code, and Hibiki was pretty sure it was that half that had Kenichi spell out exactly what his findings meant and how he could use them. It was unfortunate to say the least, but that didn't mean that the raw data wasn't useful, just that there was a lot more of it, it was a slog to get through, and it required a bit more effort on Hibiki's end to parse.

After a little over a month of going through the man's varied scrolls, reading his notes, and taking some of his own, Hibiki was able to come up with a story. From what he could understand, the very day Kenichi had acquired the Kaguya blood and returned to his little hidey-hole, he'd gotten to work and created a Zombie with Kaguya blood, and then aged it up so its chakra coils would develop and he could get to work. Of the ninety five Zombies he made, only about thirty awakened the bloodline. Some of those thirty had been put under genjutsu, some had been forced to fight other Zombies, some had had Kenichi's own chakra inserted into their systems, some had had chakra leeched off of cloned Kaguya blood pushed into their systems, some had been given grievous injuries, and on and on it went.

To the outside viewer, this would just be a catalog of what could technically be called torture, but to Hibiki, it was a pattern. Of the few bloodlines he'd awoken naturally, the Uchiha's most closely resembled the Kaguya, in the sense that it needed some kind of external stimuli in order to manifest, while the others appeared to rely on his chakra control. The Hyuga Byakugan could apply as well, but Noboru was out of the village, and he was pretty sure he couldn't tell him anything about it to begin with, so he had to rely on what Dante had taught him about his own eyes.

The Sharingan was triggered by external stimuli. Specifically, a traumatic experience was needed to kick-start the manifestation, and then further traumatic experiences could mature it faster if one wasn't willing to wait and train. Furthermore, its evolution, the Mangekyo, followed this same pattern - if someone experienced some kind of trauma, something that shook them to their very soul, their eyes would evolve, and one needed look no further than Hibiki for an example: He'd gotten his after blowing up Iwagakure, realizing that it hadn't even had to happen in the first place, and that he'd allowed himself to do it in more ways than one.

So how would one apply this to the Kaguya Zombies?

Well, the pattern to them was that every one of the Kaguya Zombies had almost died. They'd been injured, mortally, but Hibiki was willing to go a step deeper, because if it was just being horribly injured, then all of the Zombies should have gotten it, and they should have killed Kenichi. Using Tarzan, Hibiki knew that all of these Zombies had adult brains, but infant intelligence - Kenichi was able to give them instructions, but they didn't really understand the what or why of things. This meant that these were all incredibly confused infants being dissected, experimented on, told to fight, and otherwise tortured - and all of them were wounded at some point or another, some even just left to die slowly. This meant that it wasn't the wounds themselves that caused a manifestation, nor was it the lethality of the wounds or the speed of death - because some died fast, some died slow, some took minor wounds that Kenichi didn't want to deal with, some took major ones that made him throw out the Zombie like a piece of trash. All of them died, but only a third of them woke up the bloodline, so what was the commonality between those thirty?

Hibiki was willing to guess that it was fear. Most of the Zombies that woke up the bloodline were ones who had survived, in some form or another, for more than just a few hours - with the oldest one being a week old, and the average age being around that time. While Hibiki was no expert, he was willing to bet that that would be just enough time for some kind of animal-level intelligence to form, and as such they would, on some level, begin to realize that they were alive, and their lives were being put in danger - and would be scared for it! The ones who experienced enough fear manifested the bloodline, and for his final piece of evidence, Hibiki used himself.

He remembered the day he'd awoken the Kaguya bloodline, it was his first C-ranked mission. He'd taken a cut, and then a stab, to the back, and while he remembered being loopy from the bloodloss, he'd also been scared. Losing that much blood, and then getting stabbed clean through the chest on top of that, and he knew he was going to die. On top of that, he knew the fact that he was alive again was a miracle that wouldn't happen a second time, so that was it! He was going to die, and he'd stay dead!

Properly scared, the Shikotsumyaku had manifested.

If the trigger was fear, it could potentially explain why the bloodline was rare in the clan: They were some kind of mixture of barbarians, Spartans, and Vikings - one could go a step further and just summarize them as being Saiyans. Their culture was battle, they lived to fight, and actively sought out a bloody death! So that meant a great many of them wouldn't fear death, they would welcome it! They'd seek it out! Only those rare few that valued themselves or went against the norm and wanted to live, would thusly fear not being around anymore, and when presented with the reality that their death wasn't just inevitable, but imminent, they would be scared enough to manifest their bloodline. An ironic gift, considering their culture.

Of course, he was operating on the data of a madman experimenting on Zombies, and the living results of said madman, so he needed a larger sample size, and preferably one that came from the clan itself.

So he sent Geoff out to hunt down and pass a message to Arjuna, in which Hibiki instructed the Kaguya heir to write down the circumstances and situation surrounding his awakening of the bloodline, and then to do the same to any of the other Shikotsumyaku users he could reliably get in contact with during his deployment, and send word back once he was done. While he waited on that, he got to work on playing with the bloodlines he'd gotten access to through his devil's deal with Zetsu, and the results were as interesting, as they were simple:

Almost all of them boiled down to being a mixture of a number of chakra natures, with examples being the Magnet and the Explosion bloodlines being mixtures of wind and earth, and earth and lightning-natured chakras, respectively. Most of his bloodlines followed this pattern, with a notable few - like the Sharingan, Swift Release, Dark Release, and Shikotsumyaku - being exceptions. Through his own experience and a few conversations with other shinobi in the R&D division, Hibiki concluded that that trait - being able to mix two chakra natures - was itself the result of the bloodline. Shinobi without the bloodline either couldn't period, required a tremendous amount of chakra, or outside assistance, typically in the form of someone else providing the second nature, and even then, the results were much less refined than the bloodline techniques.

That, however, was as far as he could go, because after that week of experimentation and study, Arjuna's letter came back, and the results were promising, and worrying, for the same reason:

They backed up his idea.

Fear triggered the manifestation of the Kaguya bloodline. Almost everyone who had manifested it voluntarily mentioned, in some way, that they had known they would die and were scared out of their minds, although most of them had been injured at the time, and it appeared the clan had reached the conclusion Hibiki had veered away from: That it was grievous injuries that had caused it.

This was worrisome because this meant that if Arjuna wanted to make manifestation of the bloodline standard for postwar Kaguya Shinobi, he'd have to put the fucking fear of god into those poor kids, and even the Uchiha, who required mental trauma to awaken the Sharingan, weren't that depraved. Hibiki, however, was willing to hope that this may be a problem that would solve itself, in that both Arjuna didn't strike him as the type of person to torture kids just so they'd be strong, but also in the sense that postwar kids would grow up with mentalities and mindsets leaning more towards Konoha ways of thinking. So, any postwar Kaguya would be more prone to be like Arjuna and the Kaguya that had wanted to settle down and have a home - they'd be more apt to thinking in terms of family, instead of in terms of when they could find the next fight and hopefully die in a field of bodies. By being a part of Konoha, if Arjuna's clan survived this war, the Shikotsumyaku may become a slightly more common fixture just as a side effect. Regardless of this, Hibiki would still need to have a word with him - because if fear really was the stressor that triggered the bloodline, he had to make sure that Arjuna understood this, and had to impress upon him that nothing was worth intentionally traumatizing kids.

But, there was something else to consider:

Even ignoring what Arjuna's final decision would be in regards to intentionally manifesting the bloodline, if Hibiki was right and fear caused it, and that subsequently meant more Kaguya would start manifesting as time went on and their culture started to mix and meld with Konoha's, the questions of the Military Police and how they'd handle it wouldn't just be a matter of 'if,' but when.

There was no avoiding it:

He had to get Fugaku and Hiashi in the same room.

Worse:

He had to play the game.

---

Black and White

It took Hibiki longer than he would have wanted - thanks to the labyrinthine nature of Kenichi's notes and the amount of time it took for Arjuna to gather some data for him, two months had passed since his wedding and Konoha's reimagined war strategy, and Hiashi had been among the Hyuga to be deployed to the front. Hibiki was pretty sure that he had been sent out in this particular deployment rotation because, once he got back from his jaunt through the Land of Rivers, Noboru - perhaps the strongest Hyuga - would be able to keep an eye on him for the clan.

This meant that Hibiki had to sit on this for months. Fortunately, this time was cut a little by some of Dante's restructuring turning border patrol missions into four month deployments instead of nine, but that was still two entire months Hibiki had to sit on his hands and wait around for. It was a miracle that Fugaku was in Hibiki's deployment, the third and last of the year, so there was a period of four months where Fugaku and Hiashi would actually be in the village together. Getting them into the same room, however, wasn't quite as fun,especially as doing so kept him away from his new wife after she'd made her return to the village. Hibiki had tried to make it just a personal thing, ask his friend Fugaku if he wanted to meet up and ask Hiashi to come around to talk about something, but the two were either busy, unavailable, or, more likely, weren't each others' biggest fans, and didn't want to associate with each other.

So Hibiki threw all the modern political jargon he could think of behind it. It was a potential clan issue with implications for village security and societal normalcy that the military police required the intelligence on and the Hyuga may need to provide expertise with, and then with a 'you assholes' added on after the fact to throw away any suspicions that Hibiki had been replaced by a body snatcher. Fugaku knew personally, and Hiashi through reputation, how much Hibiki disliked the game, so when he started actually playing it, and to them no less, they finally got their acts together and sat down with Hibiki. The Senju head considered bringing them to the sealed up teahouse, but decided against it after realizing that this conversation, unlike the other ones he'd had over the course of his second life, wasn't a life-or-death one, and largely dealt with knowledge anyone could get their hands on, provided enough lateral and forward thinking ability.

So he brought the two to his childhood home! With Tsunade up to her ears in hospital work and whatever it was she was doing to the academy, there was more than enough room, and it was neutral enough grounds for Fugaku and Hiashi to be willing to meet without tearing the other's throat out.

With the three each taking their first sip of piping-hot tea, Hibiki began, "alright, so you two know I don't like beating around the bush: I think I know what causes the Shikotsumyaku to manifest, and if I'm right, we've got a problem of the potentially existential kind brewing."

Hiashi managed to keep his cup steady, but Fugaku had to put it down - his eyes going from their normal reservedness to sharpened steel in an instant, and his face settling into a deep frown. "Explain." He said, a little rougher than Hibiki had expected.

Hibiki leaned back into his couch, "first off, how much do you two know about our newest clan?" He asked.

"Only as much as they themselves cared to remember." Hiashi responded, neutrally. "They live for the fight, and Arjuna-san's father, alongside most of their bloodline users, was at the head of a faction that took up almost half of their clan, that sought out a different way, and that different way was Konoha."

"They're barbaristic, they're scared to death of their bloodline, and until the disgraced Hokage forced them to start writing things down, their entire clan history had been oral." Fugaku picked up.

Hibiki nodded, and took a sip of his own tea, a part of him in the deeper recesses of his mind realizing he'd had access to the entire planet for almost a decade, and he'd never once tried to reintroduce actual coffee to the world, and not the bastardized melted-chocolate, hot water, and caffeine pills Katsuo had managed to make.

Well, I know what my next time killer will be. He thought, setting the teacup down. "Second question: Would you understand where I'm going if I said I suspect fear triggers its manifestation?"

To their credit, the both of them did, and the realization of where Hibiki was headed with this even made the previously unflappable Hiashi set down his cup. Fugaku groaned, pinching the bridge of his nose and sighing.

To keep everyone on the same page though, Hibiki explained it anyways. "As you two just summarized, they didn't really put too much effort into recording things or understanding their own clan. The only thing most of them cared about was going out and taking down as many people as possible before they died. A good fight, and a better death, that's it." Hibiki wondered if his own lust for battle wasn't that part of his genes screaming out, but it didn't matter. "Of the several thousand of them, only a couple dozen actually have their bloodline. Less than a hundred. Arjuna came to me a while ago, worried that even with them having settled down here, his clan may unintentionally destroy itself anyways during the course of this war. He outright expects the ones who had been assigned to border patrol duty to seek out fights and glorious deaths, but what he's really worried about -"

"Are the tamer ones doing the same." Fugaku groaned again, not having removed his face from his hand.

Hibiki nodded, "even Sensei thinks that Konoha getting attacked is only a matter of time, a sentiment Arjuna agrees with, and thus is worried that - to use his own words - the more 'domesticated' of his clan may fall to their baser instincts and go and seek out a death. Thus -" He nodded to the side, "- he's worried about the long term viability of his clan. So he came to me and asked if I couldn't help him figure out what manifests his bloodline, and to summarize that, after going through the Senju archives, my own notes from when I was younger, and getting testimonies from some of Arjuna's clan, I determined it likely that fear, perhaps specifically the fear of dying, triggers it."

Hiashi was good at keeping a poker face, but Hibiki noticed him sighing regardless. "Arjuna-san believes that any of his clan who survive this war will be more accepting of the changes that has occurred to it since integrating." He surmised, "and as such, future generations will not seek out glorious deaths, instead subscribing to the Will of Fire, and thus becoming more apt to be afraid of dying, leading to more Kaguya manifesting their bloodlines."

Hibiki nodded, "the problem Arjuna sees may solve itself... But will introduce more problems in so doing." Beat, "what may be good for Konoha, may also be bad for Konoha."

Fugaku straightened back up, appearing to have aged to his twenties in the last five minutes. "Not good." He summarized.

Hibiki nodded, "now, I'm going to be frank. I'm not dealing with opinions or feelings here, only facts." He said, looking right at Fugaku when he followed that up with, "the Military Police isn't equipped to handle that. Plain and simple." The muscles in Fugaku's jaw clenched, as did his fists, but he let Hibiki continue. "The strength of an average policeman is equivalent to a Chunin. Maybe you could bump that up to Tokubetsu Jonin with their Sharingan, which I know is standard requirements to be an officer." He said, "but while that works for literally anyone else, the Kaguya are an order of magnitude different from most shinobi in this village. An average Kaguya, you would have no trouble with, but one with their bloodline?" He nodded to the side, "as powerful as our eyes are, Fugaku, the sheer difficulty of leaving lasting damage on a Shikotsumyaku user effectively counters it, if not exceeds it. If a Kaguya with their bloodline chose to resist arrest, they could do a lot of damage before they would get put down, and doing so would require an inordinate amount of force. Functionally no different to the strength of numbers one would have to muster to get a group consisting solely of Chunin to kill a veteran Jonin."

Fugaku was opening and closing a shaking fist, but Hibiki took solace in the fact that he wasn't being cursed out, yet. Hearing Hibiki's words had effectively put everyone here on the exact same page - because now Hiashi's presence was explained, which the Hyuga head picked up on, and voiced.

"A Hyuga, on the other hand, would be more equipped to handle their abilities."

Hibiki nodded, "again, this isn't opinion, this isn't bias, it's plain fact." He explained, "in a straight-up fight, a pissed off Kaguya with their bloodline could likely take on any Uchiha not ridiculously stronger than them. Use me as proof - even without my lightning cloak, I'm just that durable. As long as I've even a little chakra, I can heal from anything." He snorted, "one time I literally had my chest blown clean off. Exposed lungs and everything. I was up in fifteen minutes." Plus a blackout, but he digressed. "As they are now, Uchiha MP's are trained to use their Sharingan to predict any nin-, gen-, or taijutsu use from their targets, and either replicate it, or counter it. This is a method that has worked until now, and will continue to work, there's nothing wrong with it, and like I said - to an ordinary Kaguya, it will still work. But against one with their bloodline, it will be inadequate. In order to keep their edge, they would require universal training in ocular genjutsu, and while that may be a good counter, if it fails, their last resort would be fighting."

Fugaku took in a deep, shaky breath, and let it out, before saying, "and that... Would only work in the extreme short term." He said, gulping through a dry throat. "We would lose officers faster than they could be replaced, and eventually there would come a time when one of theirs would resist arrest, and we simply wouldn't have enough to incapacitate them." Hibiki could tell it was taking a lot for the proud man to say this, with the tension in his muscles and how it sounded like he was physically pushing every word out of his chest.

Hibiki nodded, and then delivered the killer blow. "But a Hyuga..." He indicated Hiashi, "with the Gentle Fist... Could solve that problem with just one person, and maybe a few extra as backup." He threw a light jab at the air in front of him, "they would block the offender's tenketsu, effectively shutting off their healing abilities, and allowing for a much less bloody arrest. Not opinion, not pride, nothing but fact." He leaned back into his couch, "and while this may very well not be an issue until the end of the war, better we figure out what we want to do now than wait until it's too late." He gave Hiashi a brief look at that, as he was the one with the power in this situation, and he wanted to impress upon him that gloating wasn't the wisest idea.

Hibiki had plans on how he could get this deal to go through today, but he wanted to see what Hiashi and Fugaku would do on their own before he pulled out his trump cards.

Fugaku actually surprised him, saying through clenched teeth, "I am... Willing... To work with the Hyuga in these scenarios." He hissed, "for our village... And its people." But he didn't look at Hiashi when he said this.

Hiashi agreed, "of course my clan would be willing to assist." He said, "However... I understand that we are just planning contingencies at the moment." He explained, "I understand that we do not expect this to happen, especially not with regularity... That we are instead just planning for worst-case scenarios... But the opportunity to work for the Military Police is one that many of my clan have actually professed desiring as a career to pursue after the end of their shinobi careers. My own brother is among that number." He explained, "when I bring this to my clan, while many would accept it for what it is - acting as an auxiliary force - some may wish to go a step further and actually be a part of the MP's."

"That won't happen." Fugaku snapped, "the Military Police is ours, Hyuga. We've had it since the village began!"

"I understand that." Hiashi conceded, as cordially as could be expected, "but this would not even be a matter of pride. When I go to my clan about this, many may see it as a chance to give back, as it were, to our civilians. These shinobi are the same that assist these civilians in the mundane - in finding lost children, parents, pets... Even scattered paperwork, from time to time. They truly want to help, and you would refuse them because of blood?" He asked, turning to the Uchiha. "That would only invite resentment, Uchiha."

Oh... I don't like where this is going. Hibiki controlled his expression, still willing to let this play out.

"I can turn that right back on you, Hyuga." Fugaku growled, "Imagine how useful the Gentle Fist would be, even to those who cannot see tenketsu, and you deny it because of blood. That isn't something unique to your bloodline, which would be excusable, it is merely a skill that can be taught, and used most efficiently with your eyes. It is no different to the Naara shadow techniques, or the Yamanaka mind-walking techniques. You accuse me of blood bias and yet you practice the same thing!"

"Alright!" Hibiki leaned forward, making a 'time out' motion with his hands, "time out, time out. This is getting off track." He grunted, "Fugaku, Hiashi has a point. I understand that it's a point of personal pride that your clan was selected, by Tobirama himself, to protect the village from itself, but let's look at this objectively. In the near-century the village has been around, our population has grown from just the various clans Hashirama pulled together, to almost five million people, and the numbers of shinobi grow to match that." He began, "now, you're all good. You're policing the village effectively, but keep in mind you are not just keeping an eye on Shinobi lawbreakers, you're effectively in charge of internal security for the entire village. On a day-to-day basis, how many times do you deal with a Shinobi breaking the law, versus a civilian?" He asked.

Fugaku remained silent.

"One in ten?" Hibiki asked, "one in twenty?" He shrugged, "the point is, even if you hold your monopoly on the Military Police, our population is only going to continue to grow. Even if you can handle it for another generation - hell, another hundred generations, even! Eventually there will come a point where there just aren't enough Uchiha to do this job, and all else equal, what will you do then? Just let the village slowly descend into anarchy?" He asked, "take each and every single Uchiha alive and throw them at the problem? No, you'd have to let others join in on the fun, or else you would run the risk of losing the job entirely. Just in terms of numbers, there will eventually come a point where you will have to let non-Uchiha into the police, it's that simple."

He then turned to Hiashi, "Hiashi, bringing blood into it was a dick move. The whole village system was created as a means of removing those barriers, and let's be frank, Fugaku's clan has only recently started to remove some of the stigma they've had ever since the village was founded, so that's still a sore subject and you just hammered it. I understand, as does he, the fact that some people will genuinely want to protect and serve, but the reason we're here today is to specifically not make it a clan issue. To remove that pride from the equation, and work together for the better of everyone.

"The simple fact of the matter is this problem has to be solved, it has to be solved today, and there is really only one way to effectively solve it. Your clans have to work together, or everyone suffers... And even if you don't want to look at it that way, look at it like this - one time, people will overlook. Two times, they won't think twice about. Three times, four, five... If the Kaguya become a problem, and if we don't have a ready-made solution to that problem, eventually the people will view their clan just as bad, if not worse, than they viewed yours." He looked to Fugaku, who blinked, "and you know how bad that feels. And if that happens..." He turned to Hiashi, "they'll grow to resent the village, and best case scenario, they just become insular. Worst case, they leave, and they won't be nice about it, and then what Arjuna fears - his people going back to their own ways and going extinct - will happen, period." He crossed his arms, "is that what you want? Do you want a whole clan to suffer like yours has?" He looked to Fugaku, "to hate the village? Maybe even go extinct?" He looked to Hiashi, "when we have the power to avoid it entirely?"

There was a few moments of silence, before Fugaku sighed. "Hibiki... It is not just my clan as a whole that I am considering, but also the individual. For all the stereotypes, right and wrong, the most accurate is that we are proud." He said, looking at the coffee table in front of them, shoulders slumping. "I worry about what the individual reactions will be to what would be perceived as the Hyuga encroaching on our territory. Because we can't just up and say we're doing it because of the Kaguya clan, that much is obvious. So to the average clansman, it would be seen as the Hyuga strong-arming their way into a task that is traditionally ours."

Hiashi closed his eyes, nodding. "And... Proud, are we, too." He said, "while it would be common knowledge for the heads of the major branches why we would be assisting the Uchiha, to the rank-and-file, it would not be. They may hold it over Fugaku's clan, believing they are being allowed into the Military Police because they can't do their jobs, and need us."

Hibiki unfolded his arms, letting them rest on his lap, "so how do we solve this, then?" He asked, relieved that the tension had been removed. "Because it seems to me that if one clan was able to provide the other with something they genuinely needed, and the Military Police was seen as the price to pay, we might be able to avoid a lot of problems."

Hiashi and Fugaku, both being veterans of the game, instantly knew Hibiki was getting at something, but it was only Fugaku that had a hint of surprise in his eyes, as he was the only one who knew Hibiki personally, and thus he was the only one to realize how surprising it was that Hibiki had orchestrating this whole thing, playing them like puppets.

"What would you suggest?" Hiashi asked.

"It would have to be something endemic to your clans, that you couldn't readily solve yourselves, but that the other could." He explained, "It would also have to be seen as a clear victory over the other, something equal to the price being asked." He nodded to Fugaku, "your clan would need something as valuable as their monopoly over the Military Police." He nodded to Hiashi, "your clan would need something as valuable as whatever they ask for... Since this isn't something that can be solved with something as simple as marrying your clans together, we have to get creative."

Anyone else, and they might have rolled their eyes at Hibiki's remark, but to the two nobles in front of him, they just let the snide comment slide. Instead, they sank inwards, thinking about potential problems that met Hibiki's criteria, whilst also not being too private to the clan. Hibiki had a couple ideas, but they were drastic, and he wasn't entirely sure how they'd react to it.

Unfortunately, for whatever reason, neither of them could think of something, and, while disappointed, Hibiki wasn't necessarily surprised.

"Alright." Hibiki grunted, "I'll try to be... Subtle, because I'm dipping into things that I know you two don't want the other to know." He said, attracting the onyx eyes of the Uchiha and the white orbs of the Hyuga. "Fugaku, there's a... Call it a condition, that comes with the Sharingan. You know what I'm talking about?"

Fugaku blinked, and for a moment looked like he might be outraged, but then he realized who he was talking to - if anyone outside the clan, Hibiki would know about the Mangekyo, so he nodded.

"If I had a way to... Treat its side effects, how willing would you be to work with this?"

Fugaku blinked again, this time straightening up as he looked at Hibiki in a new light. Not waiting for him to answer, Hibiki turned to Hiashi.

"Hiashi... You and I don't know each other well, but I do personally know two members of your clan, who up until very recently existed on opposite sides of the socio-political spectrum, and something related to that that has frequently come up as a fear for them is a certain..." He scratched at his forehead. "Precaution, that they're scared to death of. Why it exists is understandable, but what if I was able to make it such that the people of your clan wouldn't be nearly as scared of it anymore?"

Hiashi did a double take, "uh..." He muttered, dumbly.

"Through me, you two have potential solutions to problems endemic to your clans. We can paint this picture - we can spin this story. You two independently realized the potential security problem a whole clan of bone-weavers presented, and spoke to each other about it. During the discussion, you two realized that the only way to make it work, to do so without increasing the tensions between your clans, was if you could offer each other something so valuable that you both would be willing to give ground to get it. You two knew what that price would be - the only thing so valuable that you'd be willing to meet each other for it - but also that you yourselves couldn't solve this problem... But you did, however, have the resources available to you to get it solved, so you two agreed that if you could solve this problem for each other, you would jointly operate the Military Police... And then you came to me."

"Hibiki, I'm willing to go out on a limb and say that the issues you're referring to are one of, if not the most well-guarded secrets to our respective clans." Fugaku intoned, cautiously, and when Hiashi nodded, he continued, "we cannot necessarily make the deals of this bargain public."

"Then add it to the pile." Hibiki responded, "your two clans are second only to mine in the number of dirty secrets they have. This one would just be a much less inflammatory one. A deal made between clan heads, kept secret to the clans. All the general populace would know is that you two gave something the other desperately wanted, for the continued security of the village." He cracked his knuckles, "whether or not you two actually tell each other what I'm talking about is up to you. The important part is that what I'm referring to is something everyone in your clan would recognize immediately, and as long as we spun it as a deal between you two, would be incredibly thankful to the other clan for."

Fugaku scoffed, shaking his head. "You claim to hate this game, Hibiki, but you are good at it."

"Can you truly claim to do what you say you can?" Hiashi asked.

"Yours -" Hibiki nodded to Hiashi, "will be a little more difficult, and I'll need access to... Relevant documents... but I'm confident I can get it done." For Fugaku, it was as simple as cloning a pair of Hibiki's eyes, sealing them in a stasis scroll, and then pulling them out and cloning them again for transplantation purposes in anyone who went blind from the Mangekyo. For Hiashi, it would take time, as Hibiki would need to first study the Caged Bird Seal, then its codex, and then would have to create a new one, that achieved the same effect - destroying their eyes on death - but without the possibility of the Main Branch being able to torture their sub-branches with a thought.

Treating the cause, and not the symptoms.

Fugaku and Hiashi exchanged a glance. They weren't willing to explain to the other what Hibiki was offering them, but they both knew that Hibiki was giving them something valuable. He was offering the Uchiha clan a way out, if potentially temporary and requiring more than one transplant over time, of the side effects of the Mangekyo, and he was offering the Hyuga clan a massive increase to their quality of life.

And the price was just working together for the safety and security of the village.

They turned to Hibiki and nodded.

---

Treating the Cause

For the Uchiha clan, it was literally as easy as Hibiki thought it would be. Even discounting Zetsu, Hibiki had effectively solved this problem when he was eight, even if he hadn't realized it at the time. His theory was simple: Give a blind Uchiha the eyes of another Uchiha, and they wouldn't be blind anymore. The reason the Uchiha didn't do this themselves was because of the extreme social taboo of doing so, and because of the fact that they didn't have the same methods as Hibiki - their only option was taking someone else's eyes. Hibiki, however, had the Something From Nothing technique, and had always kept a spare pair of his own eyes on him ever since Nagato. Two pairs, ever since Hagoromo had - intentionally or otherwise - let slip that Hibiki might be able to naturally awaken the Rinnegan. Storing them wasn't an issue either, because he'd had stasis seals ever since Nagato, and had perfected them for the Loop.

The biggest question Hibiki had was if this would give the Uchiha in question an eternal Mangekyo, or would just fix their eyes temporarily. If it was the former, Hibiki was still willing to go through with this, but he and even Fugaku were worried about giving power equivalent to Madara Uchiha out to any Uchiha who went blind. If it was the latter, Hibiki and Fugaku were both comfortable with the idea, even if it meant that any Uchiha who received transplants would have to receive another transplant later on in life if they continued to use their Mangekyo.

Testing this had been as simple as finding an Uchiha volunteer. Hibiki had initially floated the idea of bringing Dante into this - they could both trust him to keep the secret if it was successful, until all the work was done - but Fugaku shot it down. As well as Dante was seen by the general public, and even an increasing majority of the clan, the Uchiha Elders were still wary of the man, and fixing his eyes wouldn't go down well with them. Similarly, they couldn't use the elders themselves, because they were survivors of the Warring States - they didn't really have the mindsets Hibiki and Fugaku wanted. Fortunately, and to Hibiki's surprise, there were actually a lot more Mangekyo users in the clan than Hibiki had initially thought.

According to Fugaku, the fact that it was kept so close to the chest for anyone who could use it, was due in part to the stigma generated about the eyes and their power by Madara, the cost of using the eyes, and the understanding that if the average Konoha citizen learned of the incredible power every Uchiha held within them, the fear and ostracization the clan had been suffering under for so long would only get worse - to the point where they may be treated just as they themselves were treating the Kaguya right now: Planning for the eventuality in which one or many of them went rogue. Better to keep it a secret and only make it public in emergencies - like when Facsim and Aojiroi attacked the village. Past that, it was kept secret almost to a fault, to the point where many Uchiha even believed the narrative that had been spun, and thus thought that the eye had never been seen since the days of Madara Uchiha.

The Uchiha had established this tradition as a means of providing the narrative that the Mangekyo was impossibly rare to anyone outside of the clan that would learn of its existence, whereas, in reality, while rare, it wasn't nearly as rare as it seemed. After all, the entire deal was that anyone with a fully matured Sharingan, who experienced emotional trauma equivalent to seeing a loved one die, or doing the deed themselves, would awaken the eye. It was downright ludicrous to think for even a second that the Uchiha were so emotionally stunted that a power directly tied to their emotions was rare, especially after two consecutive world wars would see a great many Uchiha see a great many of their loved ones die in their arms, and then even more of them were policemen who would see the absolute worst the village and Humanity had to offer.

So all they had to do was find an Uchiha, with the eyes, that Fugaku trusted.

And that was how Hibiki met Fugaku's father.

The man was an interesting confluence of a Warring States upbringing and Konoha ideals, resulting in a man that barely trusted anyone he didn't share blood with, but was still willing to fight and die for his village because it was the right thing to do. He embodied a lot of the stereotypes of the Uchiha - stern, stoic, an eternal frown wrinkling his face, two long lines framing his nose and running down to his mouth, and blind as a bat. He carried himself well despite his impediment, to the point where Hibiki wouldn't have known if Fugaku hadn't told him outright that he'd burned his eyes out.

Though, the man had required Hibiki to spend several hours explaining to him the minutiae of the procedure, and all of his thoughts and theories regarding it. As willing as he was to trust his son, a Senju on the other hand, not so much.

But at the end of it, he willingly sat himself down on an operating table in Konoha's hospital, and let Hibiki and a posse of clones get to work. Two hours later, and the man's eyes were replaced, and put into a storage seal. Three hours after that, the anesthetics washed out of his system, and for the first time in his life, Hibiki saw an Uchiha cry.

Hell, Hibiki teared up a little too, hearing the man repeat 'My boy!' over and over again while somehow managing to simultaneously crush Fugaku in a hug and look every inch of him over with his new eyes, it reminded him of his father, in another life.

Six hours after the surgery, Hibiki had done every test he could think of, and the elder Uchiha passed with flying colors. His eyes worked, he'd attached the nerves correctly, everything had healed correctly, and he could still flip his Sharingan on and off. When the moment of truth came, and he activated his Mangekyo, Hibiki saw a pinwheel, but no trace of his own spirograph, in the man's new eyes. Hibiki wasn't entirely sure what to make of that, and while he came up with a few theories, they weren't pertinent at the moment - what mattered was that it worked, and that they didn't have to worry about giving blind Uchiha power that they weren't ready for. And, as a bonus, they got a little practice in with the narrative they were setting up, to boot. By the end of the day, Fugaku's father was willing to give his eyes again for the Hyuga clan, and had sworn a debt to the Senju for being able to do, within the bounds of morality, what his own clan had never been able to do.

After that, he had to return to pretending to be blind, but that wouldn't be for too long - because Hibiki got to work on the Caged Bird seal not long after.

It took Hiashi a week to squirrel away copies of the original seal and the codex, during which Hibiki worked with Fugaku to teach him the Shadow Clone technique, the Bare Minimum Shadow Clone technique, and from them the Something From Nothing technique, so his clan wouldn't have to rely on him to clone more eyes. Hiashi promised Hibiki a painful death if he abused the knowledge he was being given, and also told him that there would always be a pair of eyes on him until he was done with his work on the seal, and that was how Hibiki learned that Hiashi had brought Noboru and Akane in on their little scheme.

"So, uh..." Hibiki said to Noboru, when the Jonin dropped off the scrolls. "You pissed?"

"Not at all." Noboru shook his head, "just worried."

Hibiki tilted his head, "how so?"

"If this is what you do when you are bored, I fear for the day you run out of clans to fix." Noboru said, with a thin, sly grin.

Hibiki rolled his eyes and took the scrolls, "shut up or I'll seal you."

After rolling his eyes and giving him an exaggerated bow, Noboru, his byakugan as active as it always was, left his old friend to his work, and once Hibiki cracked it open and got it to expand, his first feeling was surprise. Uncompressed, this seal took up the walls, floor, and parts of the ceiling of the living room, and even stretched a little into the kitchen. Hibiki had thought compressing the Hiraishin down onto a bullet had been impressive, but this? They got this monstrosity to fit on the heads of infants. Adults maybe he could understand, they had more surface area to work with, but babies! That led him to his second feeling: Utter revulsion. Reading the seal and comparing it to the codex made Hibiki feel like he was in some kind of Lovecraftian nightmare - this thing didn't just cause pain, it changed the very way they perceived reality. Up was down, left was right, in was out, and the absence of pain, was instead the worst they had ever felt in their lives - and this sensory 180 caused such a conflict in the body and mind that what they felt was multiplied to be even worse. Just a few seconds of this thing caused enough brain damage to leave a Branch member docile and dazed for days, but if they left this thing on for even a minute they courted killing the poor bastard in the worst way Hibiki could imagine.

This wasn't just security, this was control. This was a bunch of old men realizing that the only thing that kept them in power was the good will of their people, so they abused that good will to keep themselves in power. Seeing this seal made Hibiki lose a lot of respect for whichever Hyuga ancestors had created it, and he shuddered to imagine the sequence of events that had led to it. But, at least he understood why Hiashi didn't fight him overmuch once he'd convinced the man he could fix it - even if one ignored the fact that his twin brother, and any children he would have, had been branded with it, the man probably only went along with it because the alternative would mean the clan elders holding the entire clan hostage against him.

Was Hiashi really in charge of the clan, or was he the Queen of England in this scenario? Nice to look at and a good face to pin stuff on, but not nearly as important or powerful as they once were, and were still purported to be?

Either way, Hibiki had to figure out how to fix this.

The good news, was that he had an infinite number of test subjects he could test this bad boy out on.

The bad news was that his clones popped immediately once they died, so he wouldn't have any time to observe whether or not the new seal destroyed their eyes.

The good news was that he was pretty sure he had a way around this.

But first he'd have to play with the original seal, to see what he could and could not do with it, and this was what took the bulk of Hibiki's time with it. More than a dozen clones, each trying out different things, all took a month, and moving out to a training grounds to avoid destroying his apartment, before Hibiki had a solid idea of what he could do with the seal. His initial idea had been to just surgically remove the lines of scripture that induced pain, but the ancient Hyuga had planned for that, it seemed, and doing so immediately detonated the seal, with a rather impressive explosion, to boot. Next, he tried to just copy down the kill codes, the ones that destroyed the eyes on death, but the ancient Hyuga had thought of that too, and had woven those command lines into all of the other lines of code as well, so it was either all, or nothing.

Hibiki swore that the Hyuga that came up with this must have been an IT Technician before Hagoromo catalyzed him, or was part Uzumaki.

What am I going to call this? Thought the Alpha Hibiki, as he and a dozen other clones spitballed a dozen different seals in an effort to find one that achieved similar post-mortem effects to the Caged Bird. Ah fuck it, I'll just call it Kryptonite. He probably wouldn't ever find another use for the term in this new world, and while it didn't fit perfectly - or well at all, really - it was the best one he could think of, and he just wanted to use it.

In the end, Hibiki had to functionally create an entirely new seal from scratch. At best, the Caged Bird was reference material, and at worst, it was completely useless. Doing so wouldn't necessarily be difficult on its own, the trick was to instead make this new seal visually look identical to the old one, such that Hiashi's Elders wouldn't notice anything was wrong until it was way too late, and to make it work fast enough that Hibiki could watch and confirm its success before his clone would vanish.

The idea Hibiki ended up running with was creating a minor conversion seal, inside of the Kryptonite seal's code. Once it was painted on someone's forehead, it would absorb a tiny amount of chakra - so little that even an infant wouldn't be affected - and convert it to Swift chakra, which everyone could produce, but only someone with Hast blood could sustain indefinitely. This Swift chakra would be held in the seal for the Hyuga's entire life, until such a time as they died - at which point, the seal would activate, and then in a nanosecond would fry the tenketsu in their head, and calcify their eyes, rendering them useless to anyone who would want to steal them, and doing so so fast that, unless someone actually had Hast blood, they wouldn't be able to even think about trying to recover the eyes before the seal did its magic.

And as a bonus, it let Hibiki actually be able to test the Kryptonite seal on his clones and judge if it worked or not. He would plant the seal on the clone, crack open his swift release, use his Sharingan to speed himself up even faster, and then the clone would shoot themselves. Hibiki would watch in extreme slow motion as the seal, the only thing that moved at 'normal' speed to him, would activate, glow brightly, light their heads on fire from the inside, and then turn their eyes into bone, before the bullet even left the top half of its skull.

After the first ten attempts, Hibiki added in another conversion seal to hold some numbing medical chakra, because fuck that hurt. Yes, the point was to use this on someone who was already dead, but there was no reason not to be humane about it, and the fact that it made the testing more pleasant was a completely unintended side effect. Honest!

After a month and a half, he had a working Kryptonite seal. After two, he had it worked out so, when compressed, the seal would appear identical to the Caged Bird seal.

As the time came closer to his first deployment, Hibiki returned to Hiashi with his new seal. Hiashi only briefly watched Hibiki demonstrate it on a clone, and when he performed the handsign that was meant to cause the Branch members that unimaginable pain, and it did nothing, and after he had Hibiki explain to him at length how the Kryptonite seal worked, down to the smallest detail, he was satisfied enough to test it out on a live Hyuga.

Hibiki didn't know what the man did, he wasn't allowed to be privy to that information, but he did know that it took two days, and Noboru was the one to deliver Hiashi's report.

All he said was, "I have never seen the head of my clan offer a genuine smile. Thank you, Hibiki."

To which Hibiki responded, "it's a good thing I'm about to be deployed. I was about to get bored." With a grin, and a bow.