So, unfortunate news.
My Companion Shikamaru got sold off without my consent, due to the lawyers successfully arguing that having a duplicate of myself at Chargen wasn't accurate to the 'spirit' of the Waifu Catalog.
I did end up getting the 20 credits I'd spent, but I was far less pleased when I ended up losing out on the better deal of having a copy of myself to help me in my adventures.
With a Root shinobi, it was easy to leave the headquarters as they guided me to the surface of Konoha. Danzo was still eager to take me on as an apprentice, but now it was an actual apprenticeship rather than the 'slowly brainwash me to his side forever using Kotoamatsukami' thing he'd had going before.
So once or twice a week, Danzo and I would spend the afternoon officially training. I was actually curious on what Danzo would teach, since he was actually required to teach me now. Hopefully some of his unique Wind Style and his Fuinjutsu.
Sayuri hadn't signed the contract, I noted with some amusement at the torn up paper that I could see from miles away. I wasn't worried. Sayuri was already Stamped. It would take another 2 days for it to take effect.
In truth, I was honest on helping Sayuri unlock her Sharingan, since once she was Stamped, she'd have the same Defenses as the rest of my retinue.
Which included Stress Defense II. The odds of Sayuri unlocking her Sharingan after that were practically zero, unless I bought Toggle for her just to remove the Stress Defense II from her defenses without removing it for the rest of us.
As it was, I was especially excited for Yakumo. Ido's interference was low in this encounter, as Ido was all about impulses, and this shortcut to being a shinobi? Absolutely an impulse. She and Yakumo both would sign it.
Which made me wonder, if Ido would count as a separate Capture or not. Probably not. Under Company policy, Ido would be a Familiar.
[Paradox Defense II: -100.
28 Credits Remaining.]
Initially, I was considering holding off on buying more Defenses, especially this early in Naruto, but Paradox Defense caught my interest, since it also 'blocked all forced unwanted teleportation, whether that involves sending you elsewhere, or sending something into your current position.' So not only was I immune to Madara's Mangekyo Sharingan shenanigans, last I remembered was that he had some form of short time manipulation ability for his Mangekyo, but Obito's Kamui as well.
Pay 100 Credits to not get teleported into an empty dimension or turned into chunky salsa? Yeah, that made sense in my eyes. It was an investment.
The fact that it also extended to my retinue meant I didn't have to worry about Naruko being kidnapped by Obito. I wasn't even sure why he hadn't done so earlier: it wasn't like the dude hadn't just been chilling out making Kirigakure a fucking nightmare. A lot of people might argue that Itsuki threatened Obito to leave Konoha alone, but that didn't make a lot of sense, since that would leave Naruko pretty much ripe for the picking.
Why did the Akatsuki go after Naruto in the original timeline? It's not like they could've sealed Kurama first. They had to go in order, from Ichibi up. Meh, Kishimoto shenanigans. That and Itsuki was likely trying to subtly warn Konoha and Jiraiya of the Akatsuki's existence.
Oh hey, it looks like Might Guy's Team is back in town.
Inspiration struck, and my face widened into a vicious grin as I began to laugh. "hehehe... HAHAHAHAHA!! Yes! That's it! Oh, this world, this big, beautiful, world, you just keep giving me more and more ideas!"
The civilians looked unnerved by my maniacal laughing.
"YES!! Be inspired by this beautiful world and the fountain of YOUTH!! Rock Lee! Laugh with me and my youthful friend! HAHAHAHA!!"
"Yes, Guy-sensei! HAHAHAHAHAHA!!! Why are we laughing? HAHAHAHA!!"
"Kill me now." Tenten groaned in the background.
"Only if you kill me at the same time. Their idiocy is giving me a migraine." Neji grumbled quietly, barely audible.
I raised a thumbs up to Might Guy and his team. "You, all of you, are incredibly awesome! Keep training, and keep being youthful! In fact, I want to help you all! Guy, Lee, Neji, Tenten, I want to form a Contract! A Contract, of YOUTH! A promise from one Leaf shinobi to another, that we will always strive to be our best, unhindered by life's many storms, only to grow stronger from the winds of those storms to fan our flames of youth to even GREATER HEIGHTS!"
"YES! We will all sign! For Youth is Eternal!!" Guy roared in approval as I handed all of them contracts within an instant.
Guy and Rock Lee signed almost immediately, so fired up that they didn't even read the contract. Tenten glared at me and Neji looked like he wanted to strangle me, but both signed anyway, with Neji muttering. "Just get them to shut up, and leave us alone."
[Might Guy. Signed and Sealed Capture. 60.
Rock Lee. Signed and Sealed Capture. 30.
Tenten. Signed and Sealed Capture. 12.
Neji. Signed and Sealed Capture. 22.]
The first one to notice something was different was Neji, who froze for several moments. His hands immediately reached for his Konoha headband, removing it within a second, and brushed his hands over his clearly unmarked forehead. Neji's eyes widened in shock, as he then activated his Byakugan, the veins on his head bulging around his eyes. "It's... gone. The Caged Bird Seal is gone." He muttered in shock. Rock Lee and Might Guy whipped around to stare at Neji, and Tenten looked stunned.
[Possession Defense II] at work.
"You've weathered enough storms from Fate, Neji. No one must know or suspect otherwise. I'm sure you can understand why." I said simply.
Neji immediately tied his headband back on, frowning. "The Hyuga Clan will eventually find out. The Byakugan isn't limited simply by cloth and metal." He said quietly, apprehension and some fear in his voice.
I smiled coldly. "No, they won't. Part of the Contract is a subtle Genjutsu of my own design. They will see what they want to see, unless you physically show them otherwise, by taking off your headband right in front of them, because the Genjutsu doesn't try to create false images, but instead creates a form of normality. They expect you to have the Caged Bird Seal on you, and thus, to them, you will have one on you."
Team Guy stared at me. "Such a genjutsu, would be absolutely terrifying in the hands of an enemy. I am thankful it is in the hands of a comrade. Thank you for saving Neji from the Hyuga Clan, and from himself. I will do anything to repay you." Might Guy said seriously, looking at me with absolute conviction.
"I will need to consider your offer, I will say this: I would do it for any Konoha shinobi. It's not in me to allow suffering so needlessly when I can help it." I said quietly. Might Guy nodded and the team left, to where-ever they were going before.
[Yamato(Tenzo). Signed and Sealed Capture. 42.
Kabuto Yakushi. Signed and Sealed Capture. 32.]
I immediately searched through the dreamscape, finding Kabuto Yakushi's mind and ordering him to tell me how he signed on.
Kabuto: I am used to signing off on patient charts and permission forms since I am/was pretending to be a medic in training. A simple Genjutsu had me read something as something else. How infuriatingly embarrassing.
Then I searched for Yamato's mind and ordered the same.
Yamato: I signed it mainly because Danzo was adamant that it would help me with my Mokuton reaching greater heights, as he had disguised it as a Scroll. As Danzo had been the one to give me the few scrolls on Mokuton we had in the first place, I hadn't considered it any more than just a Security Scroll, designed to release it's contents to whoever matched the blood and signature of it's intended recipient.
With Kabuto, I had an 'in' into the operations of Orochimaru, and technically through Sasori, though odds were that Orochimaru had already subverted the mental seal Sasori placed on his victims/unsuspecting spy network. This would work beautifully as I could now use Kabuto to disperse copies of the Contract through the Sound since it was still six months through the invasion. In particular, the advantages of the Sound Five, with a fully restored Kimimaro, I had my own taskforce that could now disperse Contracts outside of Konoha while I was still operating within Konoha's borders, as far as anyone else was aware of.
Time to implement my new plan into motion.
Reaching into Danzo's mind, I commanded a new order.
Allow Kabuto to give whatever spy information he needs to Orochimaru during these six months to the Chunin Exams.
Summon me when Orochimaru visits you, and pretend to agree to allow the Sound and Sand to invade the village. The Snake Sannin will fold, especially when I can offer a deal that none can ever give him other than myself. Immortality, and the Rinnegan.
In the mean time, send a Root Shinobi to go bring Kurenai Yuhi into the fold using a Contract, and inform her that I can give her the edge she needs to make Genjutsu truly a terror to be spoken of in battle.
Send Fu Yamanaka out to seek out Tsunade of the Sannin, but do not approach her directly, or indirectly, and do not interact with her, merely keep an eye on her and Shizune, Dan's niece, from a distance. They may well be in one of the many casino locations within the Land of Fire.
When the time is right, I will seek out Tsunade myself to offer her a similar deal to Orochimaru. I reiterate: do not be noticed at any costs, and do not use genjutsu/ninjutsu to hide. It will not work on the Sannin, and Jiraiya will especially be ruthless if he appears to notice someone else tailing Tsunade if he's in the area.
Danzo: Your will be done, Honored One. One of the Root Shinobi is approaching Yakumo Kurama right now. I've removed Shisui's Mangekyo, but I have not yet obtained the arm made of the First Hokage's cells yet, though the ten Sharingan alongside the Mangekyo Sharingan of Fugaku Uchiha are still preserved if requested or needed.
I froze for a moment. Okay, I wasn't expecting Fugaku Uchiha to possess a Mangekyo Sharingan. I didn't even know what his Mangekyo was!
Danzo, what was Fugaku's Mangekyo Sharingan ability?
Danzo: I am not sure. There's no documentation of the abilities ever being used. His nickname of 'Wicked Eye Fugaku' indicates he was quite powerful, enough so that none ever realized he had a Mangekyo until after his death. I discovered it only because his Mangekyo Sharingan appeared when I channeled chakra into each pair of eyes to see if any had evolved during the Uchiha Massacre.
Interesting.
I shrugged, moving through the village as I decided to head back to the barbecue for lunch, especially as I wasn't exactly hurting for money. 10,000 dollars a month in Naruko's world is roughly on par of two or three C-ranks, so enough for a decent living, if not an opulent one.
As I sat down and ordered the barbecue, I noticed out of the corner of my eye a notification from the HUD.
[Yakumo Kurama. Signed and Sealed Capture. 22.]
To my annoyance, Added Potential: Uchiha, didn't work. It had to be given to someone born or entering a world they hadn't been to beforehand.
However, if Added Potential won't work, then Template Stacking will. Besides, Yakumo Kurama was filled with untapped potential, potential that the Third Hokage would end up throwing away.
[Template Stacking I and II:
Yakumo Kurama: Itachi Uchiha. -40.
Yakumo Kurama: Immutable Self. -10.
198 Credits Remaining.]
Not quite the Tier 6 of Itachi Uchiha, but it would still give Yakumo Itachi's Mangekyo Sharingan. I can then give her Fugaku Uchiha's Mangekyo Sharingan to give her that upgrade to the Eternal Mangekyo Sharingan in a few weeks to a few months, depending on how long it takes for her to fully adapt and master the Template Framework that comes with having a Template Tier higher than the Template Stacking upgrade. With Immutable Self, it would allow Yakumo the freedom from Ido without the cost of her genjutsu abilities, something absolutely wasted by the Third Hokage.
I dove into the dreamscape as the food arrived, absently eating as I let Yakumo know that I was the original contract writer, but not who I was by name.
Yakumo: Thank you. Ido's gone, and I have all this power. I feel almost invincible. This is incredible.
You're welcome. Now, I'm going to use a one-time ability to restore your body beyond the limitations of your genetic defects. Afterwards, I want you to use your genjutsu prowess to convince the Third Hokage to sign a certain document, identical to the one you signed. I'm sure you know how to do this, since you use painting as a medium for your jutsu.
Yakumo: Gladly.
I smiled slightly as I continued to enjoy my meal.
Yakumo's ability in conjunction with the power of Itachi Uchiha would be horrifying, but it was horrifying in my favor. While it wasn't true reality manipulation, it's effects couldn't be understated when she was able to cast a village wide genjutsu with nothing more than some minor planning, and that was without actual proper training!
With Itachi Uchiha's genjutsu prowess, and Itachi's immense fighting potential, he'd been able to keep up with a Naruto that had mastered his Kyubbi cloak, the same Naruto that was capable of outspeeding the Raikage, she'd be an absolute monster to face in a fight, if you could even find her to fight before she caught you in a genjutsu miles away.
I'd say I'm cheating, but let's get real. I'm a shinobi, it's part of the job. The fact that I'm consolidating my forces like this would just make my life so much easier in the long run.
[Educational Talent. -5. 193.
Martial Talent. -10. 183.
Psychic Talent. -20. 163.
Science Talent. -20. 143.
Talent Sharing: -70. 83
Educational Talent.
Martial Talent.
Covert Talent.
Communication Talent.
Soul Talent.
Psychic Talent.
Money Talent.
Soul Defense Rank II: -40. 23
Creature Defense Rank I: -0.
23 Credits Remaining.]
The various Talents and Talent Sharing was designed to facilitate the retinue training one another, in particular as I could bring my retinue into dreams, dreams that could then be molded into real time training with Yakumo's aid of her Genjutsu. If Yakumo could cast Tsukuyomi in the dreamscape, those three days in an instant could be lengthened to centuries, because we perceive time differently in a dream.
Stress Defense II would protect the minds going through extensive training and learning.
Soul Defense II should, in theory, help Yakumo handle the effects of using Tsukuyomi on so many at once, as the technique seemed to be incredibly exhausting not just on chakra but on the minds of those casting the technique.
Paradox Defense II should block the negative effects since it could be considered time shenanigans, but if not, Everlasting Talent would do the trick to avoid the effects of immense rapid aging.
As Educational Talent allows one to rapidly train others to master skills at a tiny fraction of the time it would otherwise, I was hopeful that a session or two would allow everyone to become exponentially stronger than they were now.
Which is why I was being so blatantly risky with having Yakumo trick the Third Hokage into signing my contract.
With the Third Hokage as part of my retinue, not only could I revitalize the Hokage back into his prime, but I could use his immense knowledge and mastery of the five Natures to rapidly advance my retinue even further and faster.
With the Third Hokage, also comes access and the ability to disseminate contracts to Jiraiya, Tsunade, Kakashi, and others in Konoha's forces.
Alongside a certain scroll: the Forbidden Scroll. I was certain within that scroll was Edo Tensei.
At the sacrifice of some nameless Root shinobi, or some prisoners in Konoha's T , I could summon the dead to enter into my services.
The First Hokage, the Second Hokage, Shisui Uchiha, Sakumo Hatake, Kushina Uzumaki, perhaps even Mito Uzumaki, and others.
I doubted Madara Uchiha was so easily recoverable, but even so, it would be quite the list of people to add to my retinue.
A few sessions with those legends, and my retinue would have at least one version of the Flying Thunder God, and the potential to either recreate the Flying Thunder God Minato had, or even improve upon it for a new reiteration of our own.
The other 'great' villages wouldn't even try to attack Konoha at that point. The Akatsuki might even need to alter their plans, as the odds of succeeding would be exponentially low.
Not that it matters. By the time after the Chunin Exams is done, I'll have already won. Simply by selling Shukaku, there will be no Juubi. And Obito's Space-Time Jutsu is already useless against us.
Of course, I didn't plan on having all the dead wander about in public so blatantly. No, no. They'd be a part of Root, wearing disguises and masks to hide themselves from the public. That way they can operate from the shadows, and I can avoid the drama of the other four villages complaining about how fucked up and overpowered Konoha was.
Bah, like they wouldn't have already done the same thing if they had the chance.
I have bigger plans for this place than simply an enactment of why Konoha is the top shinobi village in the world for a reason.
No, I wanted to make shinobi obsolete. I wanted to make it all but pointless to become a shinobi, and to break this system, you hit them where it hurts.
The nobles. The daimyos. They were the ones who profited from this system, even back when the Clans were little more than squabbling families against each other, it was the nobles and daimyo who hired them to do their dirty work.
Yeah, it's not a completely new idea.
Pain's idea of using the country destroying jutsu to force the shinobi world to stop fighting lest they end humanity and themselves was just the reenactment of the Cold War in my old world.
The difference is that Pain was solely focused on stopping shinobi from killing each other, where as mine would deprive them of the fuel and materials needed to wage war in the first place.
No nobles? No money. No money? No funding for the shinobi villages. No funding? Can't afford to train future shinobi. There's a reason Suna has the smallest and the weakest shinobi force by far aside for the rare ones like Chiyo and Pakura.
Sure, the shinobi could try and take the money by force, but when all the daimyo are being guarded or watched over by retinue and my forces?
They'd be slaughtered.
Then the real work begins.
See, Hashirama never replaced the core mechanics of the system he wanted to change, and because of that, it simply adapted and chugged along like before.
He united some Clans into a village, but other Clans got nervous and united into villages to counter his village.
The daimyo/nobles didn't care, in fact, they benefited: now they could hire groups of people with different specialties, instead of one Clan or two at a time. The nobles of this Era are way richer than the ones of the Warring Clans Era.
No. You need to change how the underlying system operates, the mechanics of the game must change.
Without the nobles, the villages of this world would starve, but I wouldn't allow them to cannibalize each other either.
I would be increasing trade and goods between the nations using the resources they had available to them.
Wars are bad for trade, and so they would be reluctant to give up their newfound wealth and products.
Capturing each countries government with contracts would make that infinitely easier in the long run.
Yakumo Kurama, the filler girl who was wasted by the Third Hokage, was the key, the linchpin, to my plans. Area wide genjutsu through painting, and genjutsu so realistic that the people, civilians and shinobi, considered it real? How could I not?
Yakumo. Lee. Naruko. Genjutsu. Taijutsu. Ninjutsu. How utterly wasted you all have been.
Yakumo, you should've shined as an example of why you look underneath the underneath. A frail looking girl entering the Chunin Exams only to turn the Forest of Death into a bloodbath.
Lee, you were wasted. You alone would have bodied the Six Paths of Pain.
Naruko. Oh, Naruko. The infinite chakra monster, endless stamina, and what did they reduce you to? A Shadow Clone and Rasengan/Rasenshuriken Spammer. You should have been creating tornados, turned the air into a billion invisible blades, cleared the skies alone with your power, taken Deidara and turned him into pulp when he got into the air.
But I am here now, and this world will never be the same ever again.
I finished eating my meal with a sigh of contentment as I paid the bill.
Now if only it'd be that easy for the social stuff. I should probably check on Naruko in person and see how she's handling it.
What the fuck do I wear?! I can't wear the orange jumpsuit when I meet his parents! I don't have anything else though! Oh Kami, I'm meeting his parents! I can't afford a housewarming gift! What do I say? What if they hate me? AAAA-.
Yeah, I'm definitely checking on Naruko before the dinner.