Sitting in my hide away, an intricate network of seals inked over my entire body, I allowed my mind to wander back over the full conversation I'd had with the Third Hokage. Beyond simply commissioning a project for the village, the details of which now rested mere meters away on my desk, the old man had deigned to put more than a half-century of brutal field work to use in terrifying me into submission on certain matters.

Very bluntly, he'd informed me that Shimura Danzo wasmost definitely dead and that I should never attempt to look into itas the precise circumstances surrounding the event were considered a top-level village secret. I'd acquiesced without further pressure, because it was pretty clear in my mind that Hiruzen had finally caught on to one of the cripple's assassination plans and decided to remove him permanently.

Which suited me just fine. If it was true, at least.

There very much was the possibility that Shimura Danzo had, in fact, died. Hiruzen certainly seemed to believe it, and I'd met Shisui in the flesh. Given that the man retained both eyes, I could at least be sure that Danzo didn't have the capability to instill an absolute illusion at will. That meant he probably wasn't in the village if he was still alive. Though even if he was dead, I wasn't willing to rule out one of his more loyal subordinates resurrecting him in some fashion. The entire Fourth Ninja War had been against an army of undead supersoldiers, after all.

So, in my infinite wisdom, I was going to... not necessarily disobey Hiruzen's order, but side-step it to a limited degree.

Because, as I'd told the old man, I'd been incredibly stupid over the past year and a half. I wasn't going to be too hard on myself, though, because most of it was forgivable. For most of the time I'd had the ability to pluck knowledge out of the ether, I'd been focused on the basic tinker cycle of building tools to build tools to build tools... all with the eventual goal of escaping the planet altogether. I'd locked myself into the mindset that the weird alterations to the timeline I was familiar with didn't matter and hadn't adjusted my assumptions once I'd changed my goals.

So I'll blame myself for... oh, five or six months of stupidity, that seems fair.

It was time to start making up for it, though.

I felt the moon moving into place as the hour neared, even underground as I was. Keeping my breathing even, I focused on the various seals I'd placed on myself for the night. I wasn't yet ready to commit to a finalized design, but this 'dry run' would be more than enough to see if I was moving in the right direction.

As the incredible potential of a shard of the infinite pool of knowledge began taking shape, I circulated the transplanted energy I'd acquired from Naruko and Satsuki, forging it into a whole that was greater than the sum of its parts. Paying close attention as I was, I could feel the increased density of the energy beginning to wear on my chakra system almost immediately. If I had to equate the problem to a more mundane condition, it was akin to a sudden and noticeable fit of hypertension. After the months of careful experimentation, I'd come to the conclusion that it wasn't just the burst of doubling the knowledge I was drawing from the Pure World or the Akashic records that had done the damage.

That had played a part in my health issues, but the truth was that the Six Paths Sage's Chakra needed to generate those bursts of knowledge was simply too dense and powerful for my underdeveloped network to handle over even short stretches of time.

So, if one followed the hypertension metaphor through, I'd possibly given my soul a minor stroke.

Thankfully, even if the flesh is spongy and bruises easily, the spirit is a bit more resilient.

The sensation of building energy within me peaked, the network of seals draining off the dangerous overflow of power as it did so, two charges of limitless potential birthed like small stars in my consciousness.

Hiten Mitsurugi Ryu III

ANBU-Ne Operational History

I failed to fight back a flinch as Konoha's dirtiest secrets flowed into my mind, immediately glad that I could cut off the urge to vomit and the nightmares that would have plagued my sleep otherwise. My eyes widened as I reviewed the mental list of Root's activities, instantly fixating on the final one...

...and quietly resolving toneverpiss off Uzumaki Kushina.

"Jesus Fuck, Danzo." I cursed quietly in the privacy of my sanctum. "You never aimed small, did you?"

Given that the particular op in question had been several years prior and nothing else had been added to the ledger, I now strongly suspected Danzo had been removed with extreme prejudice.

Raising my hands to start the tedious process of removing the seals, I stopped suddenly, my eyes going wide. "Wait, Danzo was funneling information to Hanzo up to just a year before his death?! What the fuck-where the hell is Akatsuki then?!"

…

"Hey, has Kota been acting weird, or is it just me?" Naruko asked, dropping into a seat near her friends in the secluded area behind the big tree they'd mutually agreed upon for lunch.

After all, it wouldn't do for them to be seen eating civilly together at the moment, given they were supposed to be 'fighting.'

Satsuki frowned as she chewed on the imitation-pizza her mother had made for her meal. It was neither hot nor as good as her...friend's, but her mom had come up with this weird way of substituting wasabi as a seasoning on the tomato sauce which made the dish very...interesting. Combined with baking everything separately before combining it cold meant that the effect was reminiscent of a strange sushi, using cuts of beef instead of fish, rather than what Kota had made.

She just wasn't sure if she actually liked it yet.

"He's teaching me the next stage of Hiten Mitsurugi Ryu now that I've gotten used to my eyes," Satsuki replied with a shake of her head. "He's...really focused."

Yakumo nodded slowly, also eating a derivative of something Kota had made, though unlike Satsuki she preferred the boy's unique touch on the cheap yellow rice usually sold to the lower-income parts of the village. When pressed, he'd called it Mexican style, a word she'd never heard, but the fact that it irritated her parents that she was eating such low-brow food just made the spicy meals sweeter. Even if she had to bribe the household's staff to keep making it for her.

"He's also been intensifying my training," the Kurama heiress stated with a frown. "In particular, the training at the bottom of the pond has been particularly difficult due to the pressure. Not being allowed to use chakra to strengthen my body... he is being a bit more demanding than usual, but I suppose our final year is half-over now, isn't it?"

Naruko screwed up her face before nodding slowly as she crossed her arms under her chest. "Eh... I guess. He's just having me do all these weird chakra exercises all of a sudden while he trains you two."

"Is that what that thing hanging over the pond is?" Satsuki asked, curiosity getting the better of her momentarily.

Naruko nodded rapidly, sending her blonde pigtails flying. "He wants me to stick to the wooden plank over the lake at the same time I'm walking on the water below it! It's really-really hard!"

"That does explain why the plank is so low," Yakumo nodded. Since it was so low, Naruko would have to crouch as she walked between the two surfaces and, if she lost concentration on her feet, they'd plunge below the water, giving everyone an easy way to make sure she was honest about her progress.

"Enough whining," Satsuki shook her head. "How's progress going?"

"The students in my group are convinced that Naruko is threatening a bunch of the clan kids into pranking them and have taken my suggestions regarding counter-measures." Yakumo stated as she rapidly finished her meal. "I've kept them from attempting reprisals during group exercises by convincing them that showing up the clan kids is a better way to get revenge than sabotaging them."

Naruko frowned momentarily at the start, but nodded in resignation. It had been part of the plan, after all.

Satsuki clacked her chopsticks together with a thoughtful frown. "We might want to throw in some sabotage in the next stage. Shikamaru still isn't properly applying himself and a lot of the others, like Kiba, are resting on their laurels too." She paused in consideration. "We'll have to be careful, since we don't want the rivalry to escalate badly..."

"Oh-Oh!" Naruko's eyes widened in time with her grin as she clapped her hands. "What if we mix things up? Like, instead of targeting the groups like we have been, we target random groups of kids with a mix of clans, orphans, and villagers in them?"

Yakumo and Satsuki frowned, exchanging a look.

"It's certainly an idea," Yakumo began tentatively, cocking her head. "But who would we frame and what would their motivation be? We've had good success on setting up limited animosity between established groups, but if there's no natural lines to fracture along, people will get suspicious."

Naruko smirked and snapped her fingers. "That's the thing! We don't frame a student for it! We frame a teacher!"

The other two girls paused again.

Satsuki remembered something Kota had said once, or close enough. "I'm both intrigued and disturbed. Tell me more."

Somewhat alarmingly, she thought that he'd also said it in response to something Naruko had come up with.

"We set it up like it's this secret test," Naruko leaned in conspiratorially. "We start a few rumors, maybe pay off a few of the genin corps that run the paperwork or something and have them 'accidentally' drop a scroll for someone to pick up after we've screwed up a bunch of people's assignments."

Yakumo nodded slowly. "We could even tie it into the pranks that we've been pulling against the other students; make it seem as though the exercise is happening because they haven't been sufficiently on-guard." She furrowed her brows. "But which teacher are we going to pick to run it? Ruri-sensei? Nichizuri-sensei? They'll both catch on, I think."

"Mizuki-sensei."

Satsuki and Naruko looked at each other in surprise at the simultaneous utterances. The former made a vague 'go ahead' gesture in her direction instead of speaking.

"He's a creep and I've never liked him." Naruko stated, crossing her arms in righteous indignation as she pouted. "He always gives me shit, but it's-it's-eh, what's that word Kota uses when you don't want to get in trouble for something and have a good reason to do it?"

"Plausible deniability." Satsuki stated. It was a great phrase for a ninja to remember, in her opinion.

"That!" Naruko nodded, snapping a finger out to point at her. "He's always picking me to do the dirty work with trash and stuff because he says he picks the closest student, but he always walks around and stands next to me before he picks me! And lots of other stuff, too!"

"I guess that's a good reason to pick him." Satsuki replaced the lid on her bento and began to pack it away. "I've just noticed that he's been really busy lately and doesn't seem to have time to notice or check things out if some of the students start treating him differently."

"I think we should ask Kota for some suggestions before we move forward with things," Yakumo added. "I have some ideas for how to use my genjutsu to fake some things to make it seem more convincing, but I'm not sure about proper implementation."

"That's fair," Satsuki nodded, then turned a considering gaze towards the distance. "I've also been thinking about throwing a match to one of the second or third-ranking taijutsu class kids, but I'm not sure who would make for a good target. Also, I think I'd want Naruko to take them down before I take the top spot back."

Naruko blinked, pointing at herself. "Eh, me? Really, why?"

Satsuki smirked as she began explaining...

...none of the three girls seeing the pink-haired boy crouched behind a thick shrub at the edge of the academy's training forest.