Sealing Salientia - Chapter 12: Blessings - Author: PenSmoke

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto, nor make any profit from writing this.

Previously on Sealing Salientia:
But, the slow progress of a human infant growing up was a nightmarish pace for a being used to roaming free. He hated how long it took to do anything. A lunar cycle would complete and he would feel that absolutely nothing of importance had happened. It was maddening. He had to keep reminding himself to be patient. His plans would advance with time, his eventual release was inevitable.

Konoha
Late October, Year 66

Hiruzen Sarutobi felt that he had been blessed.

One year ago, on the day of being replaced and the next couple of days after, he had been resentful and angry at the thought of being passed by, being left behind as a relic of the old life. He felt that he still had plenty to give and hated being thought of as useless. But, he had realized later on that it was perfect to not be Hokage anymore.

He didn't have to deal with nearly as much paperwork as the headmaster of the school. Paperwork had been the bane of his existence for years and he loathed it, just like both Hokage before him. Now, he could have secretaries handle most of it. Since the village leader paperwork was often shrouded in secrecy, he never was able to find someone trustworthy enough to be a secretary that wasn't more valuable as a ninja in his forces. As headmaster though, only a very tiny amount of what he did had any real secrecy to it. He got to shuffle that headache off onto a multitude of others, signing only the most important of things and granting discretion to those around him to make the correct decisions based upon the vision that he had laid out for what the Academy was to become.

And the work that the Hokage did was always endless. He never had had any spare time really to indulge in pet projects or fixing all the multitudinous things that plagued his troops. He had watched things that could have been fixed with a little attention get overlooked for so long that they eventually turned into huge weaknesses that had cost lives. He never had the time or resources to fix all of them. But, now he could focus all of those efforts into one task and come up with actual results.

As the lead of the school, he had been able to hire whomever he had so pleased. Which meant that he was able to pick a couple of lovely young ladies as his assistants. Jiraiya hadn't learned it all on his own, he supposed. And with his wife of many years gone, he harbored no guilt or feelings of impropriety about looking. Besides, they were all quite too young for him to do much with. Regardless, rumors of the dirty old man be damned, he was already nearly sixty and really didn't give a missing-nin's ass about what they thought.

In addition to hiring whomever he wanted to as staff, he also had nearly full control over the hiring of faculty, only having to clear it with the Hokage and the head of Interrogation clearing them first. His first hire had been easily one of his best ideas and while it had required a revamp, or make that 're-ramp', of the school, hiring Mikoto Uchiha had been a huge boon to the Academy for all involved.

Yes, getting everything wheelchair accessible had been a huge pain in the ass, but it had triggered a realization. He had always had an issue with the people who had been injured in battle wanting to continue being a ninja, but being unable to with their bodies broken, but minds alert. But, as an Academy instructor, so long as your mind was indeed alert, you could pass on your knowledge and help others become stronger. In addition, this allowed the fittest of the chunin teachers to advance further in the field if they wished. He had scrounged through the entire Academy, talking to each teacher and letting them know of the ideas and had received enthusiastic responses. Many had viewed being an Academy instructor as a dead end for their field work, but there had never been enough replacements for them to go and leave. And, canvassing the amount of disabled Konoha ninja revealed a base hungry to still show their skills. Everyone won when the solution was implemented.

In addition to getting new faculty, the regimen that the students would undergo went under a reconstruction. Previously, only the most basic of skill sets would be taught to students and only requiring 1-3 techniques down would net you the genin rank. They had also only learned a basic fighting style and a basic weapons usage. Which would put them above an average bandit, but didn't really prepare them for the world of ninja. It also smacked of industrialization and factories, where a bunch of different raw materials go in lumped together, with an expected outcome that they'd all exit the same.

It was glaringly obvious that the best ninja were those who had advanced instructions and teachings suited to their styles and would learn the best when taught what they wanted to know. Just look at the line from First to Fourth Hokage and all the knowledge that had passed on that line. Many of Konoha's most well-known ninjas of all time spanned that student-teacher list, not the least of which was himself. So, he had organized classes differently. No longer was there a single skill that you had to be proficient in to pass. Nor was every class taught to every student. There were still the core classes covering the skills that all shinobi needed, such as stealth, battle tactics, projectiles, signals and more. Even more basic things like mathematics and language arts were also included. This gave the students a choice of where they might want to specialize, while still supplying them with the core foundations that had always been taught.

Another thing that had always annoyed him was the genin assignments. It was always tradition to pair up the genin into a singular team after graduation and only then start them on teamwork by doing D-rank missions. That team would then typically stay together through genin rank, only changing in case of death or desertion. This had a one huge downside though. The genin would only learn to work really well as that one unit. And, while that one unit would be very effective, once a part of that unit was broken and a new piece put in, everything broke again. When one was so used to fighting a particular way, that they lacked the ability to have teamwork with any they weren't used to. For a village that prided itself on their teamwork, that was a glaring oversight he had wanted to rectify for ages.

He had started with first making sure that all prospective genin would be older, by enforcing a minimum graduation age of 10. He had known that having a young child on the front lines was madness and would only lead to heartache or death and was proven perfectly right with the case of Kakashi Hatake. By creating the minimum age, he ensured at least a spark of maturity to handle the things they came across would be present.

He expanded on that by having the students split up randomly into teams for D-rank assignments while still in the Academy. A qualified instructor would accompany a team for the day as their sensei, making sure that the work would be completed properly, but allowing the team to handle it using their own abilities, only stepping in for emergency cases. This forming of various teams helped multiple things. First, building a camaraderie within the students as they had to work on teams together. Second, making them have to work with various other ninja trainees to figure out tactics and strategy. Third, getting them valuable experience from multiple different leaders while working in the field. Fourth, establishing basics that couldn't be taught in the Academy, such as how to follow orders properly on a mission. Fifth and most importantly, it removed the idea of having a team and staying with that team forever, thereby breaking that long-standing issue of how to deal with a team that was minus a member without sacrificing their usefulness.

While talking Fugaku into accepting that the number of Academy graduates would drop for 3-4 years while everyone caught up to new requirements was a tough thing to do, he had managed to convince him with logic and reasoning that having better trained shinobi in the field would not only lower their casualty rate, but increase their prestige as well. He had gotten permission to get the rules all implemented and while he still had plenty of work to do to get it all accomplished, Hiruzen felt that it was well on its' way.

Anko Mitarashi felt like she had been blessed.

She had been a relatively unremarkable recruit out of the Academy, not top of her class, but not near the bottom either. She had little to no distinctive qualities outside of an odd shade of purple for her hair. She felt completely mediocre through and through. Her one stand out ability was her tenacity, never giving up on what she believed in. That feeling of eternal mediocrity had changed when a jonin leader was assigned for a standard genin mission. She had been paired up with Orochimaru of the Sannin. He took her and her comrades, and taught them the real shinobi basics on that mission. His leadership get them started on the true path of forming them into hardened steel shinobi warriors.

A few months after that, when her genin team had been slaughtered during the chunin exams, it had been devastating. Standing above her two fallen teammates, she had avenged their deaths, taking out the attacking team mercilessly. The one thing that rang through her mind during the fight was to complete the mission, her tenacious attitude shining through. She had stood out for her defense of her teammates until the very end and completing the mission even through the death of her comrades. She had not expected to be promoted to chunin for such feats and had felt ashamed of the rank, rather than proud.

Orochimaru, remembering her from their shared mission, had taken her in after that, training her to be his apprentice. The serpentine man sheltered her, consoled her, trained her, taught her and molded her even more. She had learned so much that she felt she was indebted to him for the rest of her life and had started to worship him as though he were a god. Anko sank into the role of apprentice, being more of a servant and test subject for him than anything else. She offered up her flesh, her body, her mind to her master and did so willingly. He had saved her and there was no other thing that she would rather do than to serve him.

When her master had called for her to appear at the lab for a special late night experimentation session, she hadn't objected. In fact, she had rejoiced. Anything that she could do for him, she would. He had brought her in, strapped her down to a chair and performed a sealing technique on her using some odd jar of red energy, with markings spread across the room.

It had hurt an inconceivable amount. The nerve endings were stimulated to the point of desensitization and she could no longer even feel the pain after several minutes. The ritual seemed to go on and on, the glass container of red energy being slowly absorbed within her. When the jar had finally been empty, there was a blinding flash of light and she had fallen unconscious for what seemed like days.

She had just now woken up, surviving yet another experience that would have likely killed many others, her hold on life still intact. She felt stronger, more invigorated than ever, her zest for both life and following Orochimaru had been cemented even further. She reached one slender hand up to touch the three comma shaped marks that now adorned her shoulder, just below the neckline. Her master had spoken as to how this would give her the most amazing power she had ever known and allow him to reach even greater heights with her serving under him. He claimed that it was a huge research win for everyone and had spent hours chuckling happily about it.

That she had pleased him so brought her tremendous joy. Now to figure out what this thing did.

Masuya Sarutobi felt like he had been blessed.

A year ago, he had witnessed sealing and medical techniques save an innocent life from being lost and had felt completely useless as a shinobi, being unable to help to two legends that had surrounded him. On that day, he had resolved to not only make himself better, but train all the ANBU under his discretion to be better.

He had been given a lucky break when Fugaku had capitulated to letting him remain as ANBU Commander, in part due to trying to make amends with Masuya's father, Hiruzen. This had given him the time to reorganize the recruitment and training methods for ANBU.

Taking a page out of his father's book while he was working the Academy, he created a more stringent requirement on what you had to know to be drafted into ANBU. You now needed to be proficient in all of the abilities of a ninja to at least chunin level, including illusion, hand to hand combat and swordsmanship, not just ninjutsu as had been required before. They also had to have basic level knowledge of medical and sealing techniques. If a person was considered a candidate for ANBU and lacked the required skills, they would be trained before entering the corps, not after.

He had also created some regulations about psychological evaluations for those servings, as the biggest factor in ninja dropping out of ANBU wasn't casualties from the field, it was mental strain and stress from dealing with the grueling hours and constant missions. He had worked on increasing the number of ANBU available and enforcing downtime for the members in the form of training and teaching to reduce the stress. It was still a tough job, but the corps as a whole had been more productive and healthier, with a higher mission success rate than ever before.

Having presented that his changes had had such an effect to Fugaku recently, he had been given the opportunity to continue being ANBU Commander from the Fifth Hokage, which he had jumped at.

These changes were just taking hold and he had quite some work to do before the reputation of ANBU was changed for the better.

He had also noticed something odd about a few of the psychological evaluations done on the ninja serving in his unit and wanted to dig deeper into it before ending his tenure as Commander. Several of the reports had shown a high degree of reluctance to accept being evaluated and once it had been done, a red flag had been thrown up in how they discussed their jobs. Well, more so in how they wouldn't discuss their jobs. Even with him present as the Commander, giving the okay to discuss sensitive information with the head of the Torture and Interrogation Department, who had conducted most of the evaluations, they were still very reluctant to speak. It seemed to him as if they still only revealed the barest minimum of what they did. In a way it was commendable, their dedication to secrecy, but in another it was very worrisome that they were practically unable to even speak to him about what happened.

He promised that he was going to get to the root of that problem right away.

Iruka Umino felt that he had been blessed.

A year ago, he had been dealt the loss of his parents and home in a single day and been given a huge scar across his nose to remember it by. And then, while wandering in the streets, waiting for life to happen to him, he had found salvation. In the arms of one whom he would consider an angel, no less. Nono must have been sent from the heavens directly to intervene in his life, there was no other explanation. It couldn't be merely coincidence that he had stumbled into not only one who would house and clothe him, but point him into his newfound dedication to life.

He had been devouring all knowledge on medical chakra, obsessing over it like nothing else for the past years, constantly trying to practice on everything he could get a hold of. When the Third Hokage was put in charge of school and had started specialty classes, he had been the very first one to sign up for the medical techniques classes. As well as the only one to sign up for a rotation as a volunteer in the hospital.

Nono had tutored him while working at the hospital and he had quickly absorbed everything she had been able to teach him. Already a capable healer, he now was volunteering on his own as a medic, repairing minor injuries and occasionally helping with bigger injuries with the help of a superior.

The woman who had saved him had also given him another gift. Three months after he had been taken in, his angel had left the village on a mission. She returned later minus her glasses, but plus a shy silver haired boy. While initially Iruka hadn't really cared at all about this Kabuto kid, the boy had the same fascination of medicine in him and had shortly after arriving expressed an interest in Iruka's studies.

When he had at first been dismissive, then belligerent and finally being outright rude, the scarred boy had finally relented when Nono reprimanded him in a soft voice that could have shamed gods with the tone of disappointment that it carried. And, it had been for the best anyway. After being forced to work with him, he had found a kindred spirit. Kabuto shared a similar story of loss and redemption through the same godsent woman. Iruka was ashamed to have doubted his savior, she had only been trying to do what was best for him after all.

Kabuto and Iruka stayed up into the wee morning hours studying every book on medicine that they could find. They interviewed doctors and nurses at the hospital, analyzed medical textbooks and studied the intricacies of the human anatomy. They would quiz each other on various body parts and what they do and how to target/heal them incessantly.

They had even taken to practicing the combat side of medical techniques. Kabuto had found an adept nature to the Chakra Scalpel technique, whereas Iruka had taken the Mystical Palm and turned it into something battle ready, by making the chakra violent instead of calm. It glowed a dark, angry red instead of the peaceful green and would rip apart skin instead of pushing it together. He had taken to calling it the Profane Palm technique. Both techniques still required the user get close to their target, so they also practiced their fighting styles, both adopting a more blunt-nosed in your face fighting style that allowed them to get close to their opponent to deal damage.

Iruka had also been practicing in secret, outside of Kabuto, as well. He would wander the streets late at night, watching for anything that was also out and about. He'd pick up a squirrel from the forest here, a rat from the sewers there, perhaps snag a pigeon from their perch on a rooftop. Using a kunai from the academy, he cut them open and then practicing healing them. Or he'd see how close to the brink that he could get an animal, only to bring it back again. Or he'd see if he could stop their heart and lungs, subsequently attempting to restart them again after a moment.

What he found the most intriguing was a technique he had heard of while in the hospital. Supposedly a tactic for training one of the greatest medics to ever live, Tsunade. It involved scooping a fish out of water and seeing how long he could keep it alive on land before it died. It held multiple challenges in one, trying to keep the fish still, without damaging it. How to keep the fish breathing. And how to heal any damage that occurred during the episode.

It was great experience, but he was already viewed as an outcast because of how much time he spent outside the Academy and he had had his head buried in a book for months now. He didn't want to give anyone else ammunition to use against him.

Kicking out the coals of the campfire he had made on the shore of a stream a short distance into the woods of the village, he patted his now full belly from the cooked salmon he had made from his longest lasting experiment yet. He was up to two minutes on the fish and felt he was improving well. And it tasted great afterwards. A win on all fronts.

Fugaku Uchiha felt that he had been blessed.

A year ago, he had been desperately trying to keep the entire clan calm against a rising tide of resentment brewing from within about how the Uchiha were being shunned from holding power. He had been dealing with the annoying issues of being a clan head for a bunch of people who all felt they were better than anyone else. And perhaps most importantly, a little less than a year ago, he had been still under the metaphorical thumb of the civilian council.

Last week, he had finally worked out a time to sit down with the daimyo about all of his plans. They had met briefly after his inauguration, but that hadn't been a business meeting. They had also met for a quick discussion on Konoha's standing within the daimyo's court, though that also wasn't the time or place to discuss the proposition his mind.

Fugaku and the daimyo had spent nearly a hundred hours in talks and negotiations over the past 9 days. While Fugaku had come in prepared to handle business, he wasn't expecting the breadth of the daimyo's holdings and power. The man was the leader of the Fire Country for a reason and he supported Konoha because of it's proximity and cost, plus a long-standing agreement that if the daimyo needed something, Konoha would get it done.

Fugaku's attempted bargain was something that was received poorly at first, the daimyo fearing it was a grab for power. It had almost been struck down immediately without further talks, thereby putting his entire visit at risk. Thankfully, he had managed to switch over the lines of talk into something more amenable to the daimyo, showing how the idea would not only make Konoha a better weapon for the country's leader to use, but would also expand his wealth here in the capital and potentially even his territory. Indeed, the daimyo of the fire country was definitely one to show off his money and power, which the newest Hokage was both expecting and planning to use to his own benefit.

While the Fifth Hokage had to make several concessions that would rather not have had to give, it had been worth it. Stipulations that he had agree to included, sending three promising ninja to serve in the daimyo's Twelve Guardians each year, free of cost to the daimyo. One of those was also going to be Itachi, after he had been elevated to at least chunin level. Sasuke would as well when he made it that far. Fugaku had also complied with requests for more protection of nobles from the court, as well as given carte blanche to the head of the country to pick the shinobi assigned to such missions.

While some of these were going to be horrible to explain to many back home, not the least of which would be his wife, the overall effect was completely worth it. On paper, the daimyo had come away with a huge win, but Fugaku knew how much easier this would make everything for him and it would offset any such losses incurred from the deal.

Today, Fugaku would present the civilian council with the official signed and daimyo-certified document that would dismantle them from existing. And he couldn't wait to see their faces.

AN: A BIG thank you to those who left detailed reviews and helped me look into a couple of things I didn't know before. I'm going to examine these new revelations and decide how I can fit them in, either retroactively, or implement them as a feature instead of a bug.

I'll admit, this chapter was a bit harder to write. Not sure why, but it didn't flow that well. The good news is that the next chapter is flowing nicely and I'm already working on it. It's going to be a much longer chapter, as there is a LOT that happens. And it's going to contain two different scenarios that I don't think I've ever read in any fic ever. My end goal is to have multiple ideas that have never existed in any fic anywhere all condensed into this.

Guesses as to what the interesting event is going to be? You'll just have to leave a review!

Constructive criticism welcome! And tell me if there are spelling/grammar mistakes! I switched off of Word from writing into Notepad++ and it doesn't have the same spell/grammar checking capabilities.