War
Of course, 2 days later, Pain decided that Konoha needed some redesign. It presented perfect opportunity for her to pretend that Pain was the one to heal her injury. From what she was told, he indeed healed a lot of scaring of her heart, from all of the cardiac events she had. For all she knew, he would have healed her anyway.
With Tsunade out of commission, Hinata was silently accepted back into the force as a free Genin. Her eyes were a great help in searching for trapped people as well as intact valuables and essentials under the ruins. While exhausted after day's activities, she still made sure to dedicate an hour to practice her katas and an hour to continue studying chakra.
They were just starting to make progress in cleaning up the mess, when the Fourth Ninja War started. Every able body was quickly put into squads and sent to the frontlines.
Hinata quickly realized, that her assessment was correct, she was not ready for active duty. The White Zetsus, that others were easily dispatching off, kept her on defensive. After needing to be rescued few times, she decided that her presence in the active combat was detrimental to the Allied Forces.
This is when she started to hang back and observe the battle from distance. Only doing sneak attacks on White Zetsus, who were sneaking in on unsuspecting Shinobi. She was also evacuating inured or unconscious shinobi from the fight. In just the first few days of battles, she probably saved over 20 lives with her actions.
This earned her a lot of gratitude form numerous shinobi. In no time, she was taught numerous techniques from the Allied Forces to assist in her tasks. Some taught her first aide and medical ninjutsu, to help stabilize more critically injured. This way, moving them was less dangerous and they would have better survival rate. Some taught her camouflage Genjutsu's, to reduce chance of her being attacked while rendering assistance.
One Iwa shinobi even taught her Headhunter Jutsu, so she could sneak in on Zetzu underground or could retrieve injured ninjas from hot zones. Her Byakugan worked beautifully with it, even though Doton was not her main element. Additionally, couple of lower rank and skill ninja's stuck by her, and she directed them to where assistance was needed at any given time.
Then White Zetsu started to infiltrate their camps using perfect chakra imitations. Not even her exceptionally well tunned chakra sensing ability could detect them. Neither could her Byakugan. However, the imitation had a flaw. They couldn't change the Density of their chakra, and all of the Zetsus had the same Density, no matter who they pretended to be. They also had exceptionally dense chakra, making it relatively easy to detect.
The problem was in need to sample chakra of pretty much everyone in the camp, repeatedly, and do it in person, while touching them. It put her in harm's way. Even with couple of cleared, high ranking ninjas guarding her, as perhaps the most valuable member of their group at the time, there were still close calls with White Zetsu trying to get her assassinated.
Having constant access to hundreds of various chakras, gave Hinata great opportunity to keep studying it. However, since she didn't have additional time or strength in those trying times, she opted to store the chakras she acquired.
Keeping all of the numerous foreign chakras in her own network was simply too hard, even for her, so she could only do it for short amount of time. Once she was done with the identity confirmations for the shift, she retreated to her sleeping place. Despite being a Genin, her bunk bed was among the higher-ranking ninjas, for her protection. Once there, she would seal the accumulated foreign chakras into sealing scrolls she had.
She was by no means a seal master, but she looked at seals as a potential solution to her earlier injury, so knew the basics, and could create simple chakra storage seals. Still, it was quite tedious, to store each of the hundreds of foreign chakras in its own seal.
Then, Ten Tails got released, and all able bodies were moved to assist in taking it down. Hinata, being among few with any sealing training, stayed behind to help pack up the camp and provisions.
Every ninja carried day or two worth of ninja rations, and first aid in their supply. While the camp, had enough, to keep their whole Company fed for weeks. They were also getting regular supply of more food, medicine, clothes and weaponry.
By the time Hinata arrived to the main battlefield, the fight was well on its way. It was very clear that it was everything or nothing type of fight. If they didn't get the Ten Tails now, there would be no redo or fight another day.
While their group was huge, well over two thousand shinobi's when they started, the view of the entirety of Allied Shinobi Force was breathtaking. Even with her Byakugan, it took her a few minutes to locate her commanding officer. Giving the information to others from her unit, she ran ahead.
"Captain Suzume, Hinata Hyuga reporting for duty" she shouted to her commanding officer, over the noise of hundreds of Jutsus being hauled at the Ten Tails Biju.
"Ah Hinata, good you are here. The Ten Tails is still transforming, as Akatsuki were unable to obtain Kuyubi's chakra in full. We had been trying to stop, or slowdown the transformation. Those who approached in close range had been drained of their chakra and killed, so we are focusing on long range attacks right now. Do you know any ranged Jutsu?" which made her cringe, she could only throw shuriken and kunai at it, even then, it probably wouldn't reach it at this range.
"No matter..., focus on providing first aide and evacuations as usual" reading her hesitance, he asked "What is it?"
"Ano..., I may be able to drain some of its chakra" she tentatively suggested.
"Same technique you used to identify infiltrates?" got him a nod.
"You would need to touch it?" another nod.
"Everyone who approached it, perished..., you sure you want to try it?" another determined nod.
"Very well, if anyone can do it, you can. Hinata, remember, you are valuable member of this army. Do not take unnecessary risks, if you feel anything wrong, then retreat. I would rather you have our back, than being another drained tusk" he told her giving her a serious look to make sure she understood the seriousness of his command.
As she approached the Juubi underground, she started to feel like she was moving through a sticky syrup. The Ten Tail's chakra already penetrated the earth good ten meters below it. She stopped for a moment, to focus on the chakra, to see what it was doing.
Hinata never felt more like a Kikaichu bug, as she drained the Juubis chakra into empty scrolls she had. The beast, probably, didn't even notice the drain. However, much like Kikaichu, she was not alone. She had to believe, that her efforts, when combined with tens of thousands of others, would be enough.
20 minutes later, a very tired Hinata slowly arose from the ground next to her commanding office.
"Hinata!" he cried in alarm watching his charge struggling to get to her feet. Both of her arms, and parts of her face he could see, were deep red, like having bad sunburns. Then she started to coughing out globs of blood.
The group medic already forced Hinata to lie on the ground and was running a scan all over her, while she tiredly tried to wave them away. It took only a few minutes for the medic to do the diagnosis.
"She has some bad chakra burns internally and externally. I am sorry, there is nothing I can do for her at this moment, she needs few weeks of bed rest and she should be fine."
Fighting the pain and daze, Hinata explained to her commanding officer what she had found out. As she finished her explanations, Naruto, with the help of Kyubi, shared his chakra with the rest of the alliance, giving them all second wind.
As the alliance attacked with renewed vigor, Hinata spotted roots like appendages, that seem to have been cut off from the beast, while she was gone. Using the chakra that Naruto provided, she started to seal the bigger pieces into storage scrolls. You could seal nearly anything into a scroll, but the bigger item was, the more chakra was needed. Without Naruto's help, she would have never been able to seal those, even in rested state.
She just finished sealing the fifth piece, when her instincts screamed at her. Only the experience of using Headhunter Jutsu saved her life, as the area she was in moments ago, got pulverized by the enemy. It seems, her actions caught attention of the enemy, and they didn't like it much.
As Hinata rose from the ground in safety again, she didn't even bother to try to stand, she was just too tired.
"Good job Hinata, I saw what you did. I was afraid you were a goner there for a minute" she could only nod in agreement. He spent a minute observing the fight and Hinata.
"Say, what would happen if the scrolls with chakra and pieces of the beast were destroyed?" he had little to no seal knowledge.
"Umm, when sealing scrolls are damaged, destroyed, or run out of chakra, the content will be unsealed, often with some damage to the content" she explained tiredly with her eyes closed, trying to regain some strength.
"Hmm..., very well. I have a mission for you Hinata" seeing her open her eyes and focus on him, he continued. "You are in no condition to continue the fight here, but in those scrolls you have both chakra and genetic material of the Ten Tails. Missing pieces may prevent full transformation, or slow it down. Either way, the R&D departments in any village would want those" he explained. He could see that she wanted to stay and fight, but he had to make her see the importance of her mission.
"The scrolls cannot stay here. The chance of their destruction is too great. The area outside of the field is full of Zetsu Clones and deserters, not everyone could keep their cool when fighting something like this" he pointed at Ten Tails in the background.
"I want you to take the scrolls, grab a provision scroll with supplies, and hide somewhere for a week. After that, leave the scrolls in a safe place, and look for the nearest Alliance Force or Base. I don't know what state the Alliance will be in after this, or who will be in charge, so trust your instincts. Only tell them about the scrolls, if you think you can trust them. I would prefer to avoid another mess like this."
As Hinata tiredly limped to the supply tent of her company, she started to dig into her memory of her Genin days. Trying to remember how her team went about tracking someone, and what not to do. When she got the scroll with supplies, she also grabbed a few chakra pills. Her chakra network was already fried by the Juubi's chakra, but she had no choice.
Using Headhunter Jutsu, she went to the Ten Tails again, using its dense chakra to mask her own trail. Once underneath it, she turned and went vertically down, until she ran out of chakra and the ground around her become uncomfortably hot. Taking another pill, she turned in direction of Konoha and traveled as far as she could. In similar matter she took 3 more pills, until she couldn't keep it up anymore.
Using some E and D ranked survival Jutsu taught to her as Genin, as well as her Alliance Division, she made a temporary underground shelter, before passing out from exertion.
When she woke up, she felt like crap, but knew that she had to get up. After renewing the survival Jutsus, to keep her shelter viable for 12 more hours, she grabbed some rations and water from supply scroll. Next order of business was to check on chakra scrolls with parts of Juubi. With how corrosive its chakra was, she didn't think the low-quality sealing scrolls she used would last.
Sure enough, she already could see signs of seals being eroded. More so for scrolls, that had Juubi's roots sealed into them, then the one with its chakra. It made sense, each of those roots, probably, contained Kage levels of chakra, if not more. In contrast, each chakra storage seal contained only low Genin level of chakra. However, she had 3 full scrolls, each containing 200 of those seals, so it added up. She had additional 7 scrolls with the Alliance Shinobi's chakras, as well as chakra from White Zetsus, and few sealed remains of Zetsu Clones.
Realizing, that she would be stuck in this hiding hole for at least a week, maybe more, with the damage she done to herself with those Chakra Pills, she started to organize the space and her supplies. Hinata was grateful that the supplies contained some sealing materials, which she used to repair the seals erosions. It was doubtful, that those would have lasted for more than 2 weeks, without her repairing them daily.
She also used her time to organize the Alliance Chakras. It took a bit of time, but when she was done, all of the chakras had been neatly ordered by the Density of their chakra. Getting her easy access to any Density she wished. She had good range in the lower Densities of Genin – Chunin, to the point that she could easily bridge any Density to her own.
However, when it came to Jonin and higher, the Densities were very varied. Juubi's chakra was by far the densest. Followed by Empowered Naruto's, that she saved a little bit for her research, and then White Zetsu. Even Captain Suzume's chakra was at least 50 times less Dense than Zetsus, and some Jonins in their group had it 30 times less Dense still. For comparison, Neji's chakra was just 4 times Denser than her own, at the time of her injury.
(*H*)
It was hard to judge the passage of time so deep underground, even her Byakugan couldn't penetrate at this depth. Hinata estimated it to be about 2 weeks since she hid. Her recovery was not done yet, but she judged herself ready to do some recon.
As she raised up, she started to daydream about Naruto. How they would get together and start their family. The higher she went, the more realistic the daydream become. Only being a student of Kurenai, allowed her to realize that she was caught in a Genjutsu. Even then, it took few attempts and a great deal of concentration before she could break out of it. It was the most powerful Genjutsu she ever encountered, and Kurenai shown her team some good ones.
The first thing she did after breaking out, was to activate her Byakugan. Franticly scanning her surrounding for the assailant produced nothing. Even with her eyes activated, she started to daydream about Naruto again less than a minute later. Realizing that the Genjutsu was area of effect one, rather than targeted, she pushed her eyes to their limit to see where were its edges. 'Why would someone cast area of effect Genjutsu underground?'
It was as her eyes breached the surface that she got another shock of her life. 'Why was there gigantic, weird Sharingan in the skies? Was that something that Sasuke did?'
After breaking out of the Genjutsu for the fourth time, deeply panting from the efforts, she made her way back to her temporary shelter. 'She knew that Sharingan could cast some very powerful Genjutsus, even bypassing Byakugan in some cases, but Genjutsu that penetrated good 500 meters underground? That was a whole another level.'
Over the next few days, she went a few kilometers in a few different directions before surfacing. Trying to get away from the Genjutsu area, however, it was just as bad anywhere she went. After studying the Sharingan for a while, she was shocked to realize, that the Sharingan was projected on the surface of the Moon. 'Did it mean that the Genjutsu was worldwide?' The thought sent shivers through her whole body.
Over the next few weeks, she went to the edge of Genjutus daily, trying to find a way to neutralize or weaken it. She was able to drain some of the chakra used for the Genjutsu from surrounding rocks. When she analyzed it, the chakra was different to any that she had in her scrolls. It was stronger than White Zetsu's, but not quite to the level of Empowered Naruto's.
Before this moment, she only tried to interact with foreign chakras in their unmolded state, as well as used her own in its pure form. When she realized that it was not going to cut it, for this situation, she started to experiment with different molded states of chakra. She quickly discovered, that molded chakra behaved very different, and each molded state was unique in its behaviors.
After good amount of experimenting, she figured out a 4 hand signs combination, that allowed for her chakra to repel foreign one, rather than try to fight it. Molding it into shape of umbrella above herself, allowed her to go another 200 meters higher to the surface. At depth of 300 meters, the Genjutsu chakra effects were much stronger than at 500, so it was a limit of her umbrella. If she went any higher, then she was scarred it would fail, and she would be trapped in the Genjutsu until she suffocated underground.
However, being much closer to the surface, allowed her to get much better bearing over the situation above the ground. The landscape was hellish. There was no other way to describe it. It looked like the fight went up a few notches after she left, to decimate landscape to such degree kilometers from the site of the main fight. Unfortunately, she couldn't spot any signs of life, either Zetsus, or Allied Forces, there were only few trees and bushes left standing within her range of vision.
Over the next few months, she worked tirelessly on chakra research. Seeing the Genjutsu chakra penetrate the ground, brought her attention how everything had some chakra, even stone, wind, water, fire, plants and animals. It took a good amount of trial and error, but she was able to gather some natural chakra from surrounding rocks.
It was even weaker than the chakra of the weakest of Genin, she has samples from, by a very wide margin. However, it was effectively limitless in its volume, surrounding her, if very diluted and spread out. Because it was so weak, it was very hard to gather, without her own chakra absorbing it in the process. The lessons she learned from her Genjutsu Umbrella were of great use. Surprisingly, to repel natural stone chakra, required different hand signs, to the ones required for the Genjutsu.
In this time, she had also figured out the best way to increase Density of her own chakra. It seems, that all 3 characteristics of chakra played role. The Denser, more Charged and bigger Volume of chakra she absorbed, the greater the effect was on Density of her own chakra. At the same time, using her own chakra to juice up foreign chakra before absorbing it, produced no noticeable gain.
After figuring that out, she started to feed the strongest Alliance chakra, that her own could absorb, with natural stone chakra to increase its Charge. Then, when it reached hundreds of times normal Charge, she used a great Volume of her own to absorb it. Thanks to this, not only Density of her own chakra increased at very respectable rate, but her affinity to Doton Jutsu has also started to improve.
(*H*)
It was, by her estimation, approximately 12 months since she hid. Her provisions were dwindling to nothing. This was forcing her to be a bit more aggressive, that she would have liked to be, while tackling the Genjutsu that was still up. She had discovered another sequence of 9 hand signs, that worked better as the umbrella protection against the Genjutsu.
At the same time, her chakra Density was approaching that of Neji's, all those years ago. When you also add her grown chakra reserves, she could proudly say she was now in Elite Genin to low Chunin range, when it came to chakra.
All of that combined, allowed her to breach the surface for the first time. It was hard to keep the umbrella up, especially when she also used Byakugan, but she didn't have option of staying underground for much longer.
The first thing she did, was scout the location of the battle with Ten Tails. Even after a year, the scars of the battle were very prominent. She was unable to recover any additional provision scrolls at that location, few she found scattered around, were damaged by battle and elements beyond recovery. However, further away from the battle, she was able to find a few individual provision packs.
There was also number of weapons scattered around, that were still in good conditions. She didn't need those, but collected the ones in best conditions and most unique just in case. There were no bodies of either Zetsu or Alliance Forces, that she could find, so someone cleared the area after the battle. That gave her hope, that others were able to resist the Genjutsu.
Over the next 2 weeks, she continued to scout and scavenge the area around her base. Never staying away longer than 2 days. The Juubi containing scrolls still needed repairs regularly. There were no signs of human presence that she detected, not even animals or fish. It seemed, that anything that had enough brain power to be affected by Genjutsu, disappeared. That didn't look good for her.
She decided that her best option was to go to Konoha. If someone else survived, they were sure to be in one of the Ninja Villages, or nearby. As she scouted around, she discovered an abandoned town on the way to Konoha. Over the next few days, she prepared a new base nearby, then moved all of her accumulated items to it.
The town had wealth of resources for her to use. While most of the food perished, there were number of products that had longer shelf life, such as canned food and grains. Another necessity were clothes, she didn't anticipate years long mission. While civilian clothes were not great, it was better than nothing, until she reached Konoha, which by her estimations, was still few thousand kilometers away. Medical supplies were other things she pillaged.
Bookstore with its wealth of reading materials was another godsent. She needed some way to unwind, and reading some literature was a good way to do it. Additionally, with access to more scrolls and ink, she was able to produce more sealing scrolls, which made it easier to store and carry everything she collected. Sealed products also had longer shelf life, so she was able to store a good number of fruits, vegetables and berries, that she foraged from nearby fields and forests.
Access to the surface, also allowed her to start working on her physical fitness once more. Throwing practice as well as katas were other things easier to work on at the surface. She still had to keep the Genjutsu Umbrella up, while she was on the surface, but as time went, it became easier and more instinctive. Thus, allowing her to focus more on other things she was doing.
She spent a month near the town, before she felt ready to take on the long journey. The map she acquired helped her plan the journey, she was going to stop at each bigger city on the way, to replenish her supplies, add to them, as well as search for any signs of other survivors.
If there were other survivors, she didn't know if they would have access to enough food and other necessities. Additionally, if she didn't seal and preserve the resources now, they would expire by the time she came back. The only reason she could walk on the surface relatively easy, was due to her deep chakra knowledge. It was not necessary the case for other survivors, so she planned to bring army worth of resources with her, as well as leave cashes of sealed resources in each city. It would make journey a bit slower, but worth it in her eyes.
If someone was able to survive for a year, they would be able to hang on for few more weeks. It would also give her more time to train, so if there was an ambush waiting for her in Konoha, she would have better chance of escaping. She had no illusions about her chances in a fight, with someone capable of putting the whole world under Genjutsu.
(*H*)
It took 3 more months, before she reached Konoha. The initial 20 scrolls she had on her, grew to over 300. That is without counting few hundreds of sealed scrolls she left at each town she stopped in. She was very cautious approaching Konoha, scouting it from her maximum range for couple of days for any signs of life. However, much like every other town she visited, there were none.
Being Ninja Village was both blessing and curse to her. On one hand, there were numerous Ninja Scrolls scattered all over the Village, something that was very rare outside. On the other hand, ninjas guarded their techniques zealously, so there were millions of traps everywhere. She didn't even need to get into fatal trap, anything that would disturb her Genjutsu Umbrella would effectively kill her.
For this reason, she was exceptionally cautious while scavenging in Konoha. If there was even a hint, that something was wrong or trapped, she didn't even try to enter. She was interested preliminary in 2 things at this point. Knowledge about Sealing Arts and about any Solid Clones techniques.
Much of the Ninja knowledge was hidden in Sealed Scrolls, or Seals protected vaults. If she wanted to get stronger, she needed that knowledge. Ability to make better storage scrolls, to store more items, for longer, would be another important thing to get.
Solid Clones were essential for her continued training. Kata's and target practice could only take her so far. Someone, who could be sent into suspected trap, without having to worry about her own wellbeing, was another benefit. Then, there was a possibility that her clone could break her out of the Genjutsu, if she ever got caught in it for whatever reason. Lastly, just having more hands and eyes to scout, scavenge and carry stuff was well worth the trouble of learning the Jutsu.
She spent 6 months in Konoha. At that time, she just scratched the surface of the secrets hidden within the village, but knew that she had to move on. Searching for survivors and securing any knowledge, and resources from other Hidden Villages, was higher priority.
She already found scrolls for over 200 Jutsus, mostly on the low end of power. Among them, were two Solid Clone Jutsus: Doton Bushin, and Kage Bushin. Of all the places, she found instructions for Kage Bushin in Naruto's apartment. His descriptions were far from clear, but in combination with all of her observations of him doing it and advanced knowledge of chakra, it was enough for her to recreate the Jutsu.
Granted, ever now, she could produce at most only 3 clones, even then, anything more than 1 left her winded. For this reason, she preferred to use Doton Clone where possible, as she could produce 10 of them relatively easy.
(*H*)
Hinata stood at the entrance of Konoha, her long hair blowing in the wind. It has been 3 years since she was here last. She had visited all of the other major Ninja Villages, as well as a few smaller ones, that were on the way. There was no sign of anyone else alive. She was starting to think, that the old proverb 'There are no winners in war' was true, and whoever cast the Genjutsu, perished with the rest of the people.
The only think keeping her going, were distinct lack of bodies anywhere. Someone, or something, had went to the trouble of collecting or burring them all.
When Hinata left the village, she was barely a low level Chunin, in both skills and chakra reserves. Now, she felt, she was solidly in the mid-Jonin range. She still had scrolls with chakra from her Allied Force Division. While she used nearly all of that chakra to increase Density of her own, she kept a small amount of each sample as reminder, and a scale to measure against.
Her knowledge of Seals improved significantly on her travel. While leaving most of the stuff she found in Konoha in local cache, she took number of things she planned to learn with her.
Behind her, stood hundreds of her Doton Clones. Each loaded with tens of scrolls of items and knowledge she scavenged across the world. She was now a holder of the greatest library of Ninja Knowledge the world has ever seen. It didn't make her feel any better about it, she would have traded it all, for old Konoha, in a heartbeat.
On her right shoulder, she put a seal, that prevented The Genjutsu from affecting her. There were also seals, that rendered area of her choosing Genjutsu free, so she no longer bothered hiding underground, when she needed to sleep. She still didn't know how to dispel the Genjutsu from the Moon, but it no longer ruled her existence or occupied the first place in her list of things to worry about.
Her improved chakra storage seals, were able to contain a mid-Chunin level chakra now. She could put only 50 of those per standard scroll, instead of 200 of the old ones for low-Genin level. Still, overall, it meant that each scroll could store 5 times more chakra now. At the same time, it was easier and faster to produce, as well as being less tedious to use.
She has well over a hundred of such scrolls, full of the chakra used to produce the Genjutsu. Unfortunately, it was still way too Dense for her to absorb, and there were not enough other chakras in her collection, to bridge the gap.
Now, that she finished securing all of the most important perishable resources and knowledge, it was time to do some serious training and studying. She was still unable to access some of the more secure locations, but she had no worries that those will be damaged by elements in the next few years, or even decades.
Fittingly, she moved into Hyuga estate and her old room. The rest of the day was spent cleaning up and applying Anti-Genjutsu seals over her planned living area. Leaving a few clones to do guard duty, she went to sleep.
In the morning a new routine started. The first thing was to create single Shadow Clone. It was sent out to scout a new area on the map, that she hadn't visited yet. She still had hopes of finding survivors, but also were making caches of valuables. With half of her chakra, it could comfortably operate for over 24 hours, giving it huge range of freedom.
Next, she created a hundred of Doton Clones. They were sent to clean up rest of Hyuga estate, as well as rest of Konoha back to livable conditions. Another hundred Doton Clones were sent to start creating anti-Genjutsu grid over whole of Konoha and surrounding lands. Not only were she preparing to have good amount of safe living space for any survivors, but the grid was redirecting all of the Genjutsu chakra to few spots, where it was collected into chakra storage scrolls for later use.
Another hundred clones were created to bring the village's industry back into operation. The many broken windows would need replacing, some furniture was damaged, fields and farming equipment needed to be put back into operations, etc.
While traveling, she continued to study her chakra absorbing abilities. She learned that whichever chakra she absorbed, it become easier for her to use that element. Not only were she able to use all Five main elements with easy, she could also use the combined elements like Wood Release after absorbing a good amount of chakra from plants. Ice Release from absorbing chakra of Ice and Snow. Lava release from absorbing chakra of volcanos she came across, and so on.
However, while she could use any of those abilities, and many more, she knew very few techniques for any of those. Each and every one of them took years, if not decades to master. Her perfect chakra control and deep chakra knowledge were great boon, but nothing beats practice.
From varied natural sources of chakra, the plants generated the most, so were the easiest to use to keep growing her chakra Density and Reserves. However, not all plants were equal, the trees generated most, due to their sheer size and taking vertical area. Then, some trees produced more chakra than others, some produced denser chakra than others.
Creating another hundred clones, she sent them to start plantation of the Ironwood trees she discovered to have the best chakra production qualities in both Density and Volume. Normally, it would take decades for the trees to reach a good production size, but with her Wood Release, it was much faster, if chakra intensive.
Next, she created 9 more Shadow Clones. One clone was sent with each of the groups of Doton Clones to supervise. This way, by the end of the day, she would be aware of the progress and any problems the groups ran into.
Two of the clones, were sent to scavenge stuff she was unable to access when she left, while remaining 3 were sent to organize all of the information and items she brought with her, as well as local hidden cache she left.
Once that was done, those 5 were her primary study clones. She discovered, that she could only manage 10 Shadow Clones a day worth of information. Even then, it was mostly due to the Byakugan, that her brain was already very good in information processing. Any normal shinobi would be lucky to process 2 or 3 Shadow Clones worth of knowledge per day.
She herself was doing what none of her clones could do for her – Physical Training. Which also included sparing and weapon training against Doton Clones. Shadow Clones would have been preferred for some of those, but she was already at her limit, and perceived other pursuits more worthwhile. As she got used to processing this much information, she would be able to add more Shadow Clones to her limit, but at this moment it was 10.