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The Essence of Fire (Essence CYOA)

By: Setras

[NSFW] - The Essence of Fire (Essence CYOA) by Setras

Status: ongoing

Published: 2022-12-26

Updated: 2024-01-20

Words: 116642

Chapters: 19

Original source: https/forum./threads/20725

Exported with the assistance of

The Essence of Fire (Essence CYOA)

Introduction

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 4.5 - Hokage Interlude

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 1

---

Spoiler: CYOA Choices

Spoiler: The Essence of Ideal Growth

Essence of Ideal Growth

(Credit to cliffc999)

By consuming the Essence of Ideal Growth, the crystallized essence of possibility and capability, you gain the following boons:

Any limits you have are broken. You may improve any aspect of yourself, including those aspects that normally could not be improved at all, to an infinite extent. While you may not be unstoppable now, time is all you will need before you surpass everyone. The passage of time lends you strength and even when doing absolutely nothing you may passively grow as if you were doing all-out training at a modest rate of improvement. If you were to put any actual effort into improving then this growth would gain an astronomical boost. You have total control over where any growth is allocated, will never advance further or faster than you are comfortable with, and have an exact awareness of your amassed capabilities and how they measure up. So long as a particular skill, trait, or power exists within your local context, and you have a basic understanding of what it is and entails, you have the potential to develop it. This does not require educational resources or external aids and disregards entirely the limitations of your physiology and metaphysiology. You may even develop traits that one is normally only born with. Development in any area will never preclude or hamper development in any other area, and as such you may safely acquire mutually-incompatible traits. This is to such an extent that in a Xianxia world you could simultaneously cultivate dozens of distinct foundations without any issue. As they improve, your skills, qualities, powers, techniques, and perks may develop a degree of potency, applicability, and versatility that defies their normal limits. With sufficiently good balance you could walk on intangible holograms. Since improvement necessitates the removal of flaws, you may use training to remove vulnerabilities, crippling effects, and requirements. As an otherwise ordinary human you could eventually erode away your hunger completely, allowing you to not only go without eating but deny conservation of mass as your body generates replacement tissues without absorbing any external material. Your powers and internal power supplies cannot be removed, drained, suppressed, weakened, copied, altered, controlled, or otherwise manipulated against your wishes, even if you were somehow mind-controlled. You may toggle any of your powers from fully off to fully on, or anywhere in between. You may even permanently shed powers or abilities if you find that you truly do not enjoy them, only to retrain them later if you change your mind. You cannot ever be forced to use this metaphorical dimmer-switch against yourself. Time is your ally and you will never be lessened by the passage of time, even in the subtlest of ways. No maintenance is required to retain the fullness of your powers, and no eternity is long enough to diminish your ability to enjoy life. At the time you first drink this Essence you will be cured of any and all physical ailments, psychological trauma, and other unwanted mental conditions, ailments, disabilities, etc.

Spoiler: The Essence of the Unlimited

Essence of the Unlimited

(Credit to cliffc999)

By consuming this Essence, the accumulated frustration with limits and math and exact point accounting of an innumerable number of CYOA users, you gain freedom from such limits.

By consuming this essence you may choose as many or as few options as you want from any other CYOA document, without having to keep track of the # of points you spend or options you use. You do not have to actually run yourself through the CYOA in question unless you want to. You may not purchase anything repeatedly unless the CYOA in question allows you to. It is requested that you not stack a nigh-infinite amount of identical purchases on top of each other, but that is not a firm limit. If you take Drawbacks from that CYOA, for whatever reason, then they still have their full effect on you. Even if you would normally not have access to any other CYOAs, you may still choose any number of CYOAs to be done in addition to this one. You may alter, add, or remove whatever details you choose to or from any CYOA option that you take. Your abilities, whether granted from CYOAs or any other source, may never be copied, stolen, mitigated, or nullified without your express and informed consent. You may get free stuff from the Arch Deity of Eternity or similarly 'beyond-ROB' entities only if they are feeling generous. Which they sometimes are, so don't abandon hope. Your ROB must approve your initial build, it can't be too OP. Your ROB will choose the CYOA, you won't get any others. Any CYOA entry you gain access to after incarnating will instead be upgraded as if puchased from the CYOA.

Spoiler: CYOA Link & Choices

The link below goes to a PDF on google docs.

If you find it too sus, you should be able to find it by putting "Naruto Jumpchain" in google. Should be the first entry - a reddit link.

The Naruto Jumpchain PDF

CYOA choices:

Origin: Genius (as an infant)

Start: Konoha

Race: Human

Basic perks: 'Tailless tailed beast chakra levels', Academy Training, Good looking (lvl1), Stings a little

Affinities: Earth, Lightning, Wind, Fire, Water, Yin, Yang

Starting Jutsu: Mujin Meisei (B), Hiraishin (overpurchased S)

Speciality: Fuinjutsu (Uzumaki), Ninjutsu (Free).

General Perks: Unsealable, My world, What's mine is mine, Ultimate Kekkei Genkai, Lucky, Perfect Control, Cool calm and collected, Eidetic Memory, Master of Biology.

Kekkei Genkai: Enhanced Senses (Eyesight, Proprioception), Chakra Sensing, Uzumaki (Clan member), Regeneration (lvl2)

Equipment: Ninja tools (Basic Chakra metal tanto), Training Journal (lvl2), Shinobi Library, Truth seeking balls (x2)

Drawbacks: The long road to ninja (x10), Targeted (individual [client mother rebuffed sexual advances from, Orochimaru [saw elemental combination at chuunin exams]), fan club.

Chapter 1

An alarm seal triggered on the completion of its timer; a buzzing rush of energy rolled through a sleeping form, leaving clarity and awareness in its wake. A few seconds spent parsing a flood of information as his chakra sense expanded through the village hidden in the leaves brought an easy relaxation as he found all was well.

Untangling himself from the soft form of the naked female clone beside him, Uzumaki Hotaru slipped from the sheets and, on silent feet, crossed the room to his unconventional wardrobe - a large scroll, a full metre wide, that hung unrolled on the wall from ceiling to floor - and swiped his hand across the line of script that represented his sealed work-out clothes, unsealing them directly onto his body.

Hotaru was grateful to Might Gai for the Taijutsu Masters Outfit the over enthusiastic blue beast had gifted to him, it really was everything the man had promised - breathable, durable and it prevented chafing from even the most intense workouts - but that hadn't stopped him from recolouring the gaudy jumpsuit a dark blue at the first opportunity, and wearing a light grey shirt and pair of shorts over the top. Gai had gotten over it quickly enough, and no amount of pouting was going to make him adopt the style of Konoha's greatest fashion disaster.

A quick energy shake was unsealed and downed in the kitchen before a flex of the mind dispelled the still sleeping clone. The clone wasn't a sexual thing, despite the nudity, at ten years old Hotaru didn't even have a libido to speak of.

He had initially made the clones for comfort, to cuddle with after his parents had passed away. Female because they were softer and thus more huggable, and he'd never enjoyed sleeping with clothes on, a sentiment his clones had naturally shared. He didn't really need them anymore, but it was hard to go back to sleeping alone after getting used to sleeping with a partner.

Hotaru left via the eastern window - like many shinobi, he liked to switch up his entry and exit points to commonly used buildings where possible - and fell straight into a fast jog for the first of his usual five laps of the village, path chosen at random, his breathing easy as his stride ate up the clicks.

It was a little unusual to see a student still three years from graduating falling into the habits of pattern avoidance taught to more experienced shinobi by a history of close calls and bad memories over their time of active service, but Hotaru had made a point of seeking out the retired veterans over the years and listening to their stories, occasionally helping with little chores - too small for D ranks - where they had some debilitating injury, sadly common though shinobi were better equipped to handle it than most.

The older, less busy, ninja were frequently willing to indulge the enthusiasm of such a polite child. He was a firm believer of learning from the mistakes of others and then not making the same mistakes yourself. For some reason everyone else seemed to forget that last part way too often.

He was on his third lap when he began to see more shinobi appearing for their morning cardio - not counting Gai of course who, having picked the same path as Hotaru this morning, had lapped him twice already, each time with a cheerful wave of encouragement and a shout of "Youth!"; and Lee, Gai's protégé as of midway through last term, who had recently started to lean full into Gai's questionable style choices, even going so far as to get a bowl cut to be more like his idol.

Lee hadn't really pulled ahead, despite the fact that the leg weights Lee was using didn't even offer a third of the resistance that Hotaru's original creation - the full body resistance formula - did, but it his efforts in training under Gai were showing in that he had been holding the position he started in, a few dozen metres ahead, for three laps of the village now, where just a few months ago he'd have been soundly lapped by now.

Hotaru knew that Lee would eventually move up to weights heavy enough to crater the ground and made a note to offer to set his senior Shinobi Academy student up with a set of resistance formula after their next spar; it wouldn't do to let him train his legs and neglect the rest of his body.

Hotaru was rather proud of his resistance jutsu. It wasn't something crude like the four limbs weighted seal, or that one jutsu that thickened the air around the body to cause resistance; Hotaru's jutsu applied a carefully proportioned counter-force to every expansion and contraction of every individual muscle in the body - even the heart - providing carefully tuned resistance to every action taken, right down to breathing. The seal self adjusted to ensure that it would always maintain a level that would allow for growth, and automatically shut down when it detected that a muscle needed rest. Hotaru had coordinated his rest days to fall on shut down periods.

The pair of kunoichi in front of him, and the four dogs running ahead of them, were coming up fast now. They obviously had just begun their run and had yet to shake the sleep off and get up to speed. He recognised the pair as the mother and sister of Kiba from class, the current clan head and heiress of the Inuzuka clan - although the title would probably end up with Kiba or one of his cousins as he'd heard Hana was more interested in veterinary work than joining a tracking team when she made jonin.

Hotaru stepped heavily a couple of times as he got close.

"Passing on your right." He called softly.

He always made sure to do so now, having been attacked on reflex more than once by shinobi he'd startled.

He wasn't particularly trying to be stealthy, but stealth was one of the first things they taught at the Academy, and it was revisited with monotonous regularity. The mechanics of the primary power that was the legacy of his previous life ensured that after five years of the eight year standard course, moving silently and keeping his chakra emissions suppressed was as natural to him as breathing.

Even with the warning, he noticed the pair startle slightly. The dogs were less reserved, Kuromaru's head snapped around, to lock onto him. He gave a toothless smile as their eyes met and a friendly wave, and the dog turned back to his run with a huff, resuming his stride.

The two ladies sped up to keep pace with him as he passed them.

"I'll never get used to that. You've gotta be the quietest brat I've ever seen. You hoping to go into infiltration or something?" Tsume growled out.

"Good morning Hotaru-kun," Hana called, leaning around her mother to wave.

Tsume snorted, "Right, morning brat… So, are you hoping for infiltration?"

"Good morning Inuzuka-san, and not really, no. lf anything I'm aiming for a combat team. I'm just of the opinion that a lack of inclination to perform a task, does not excuse lacking the skills to perform it."

They continued jogging for a moment and then "No Kiba today?"

"Nah, brat rolled his ankle in a spar last night. Hana mostly fixed it, but he's still gotta take a day to settle." She grinned savagely, "Don't you worry! I'll make sure the runt makes up for the missed exercise!"

The three of them shared a chuckle, and Hotaru even heard a chuff of amusement from Kuromaru ahead. He took a couple of twists in the track to mull over his options before speaking up.

"Often the reason for rolling an ankle is that the muscles there aren't strong enough… If you'd like I can set Kiba up with my resistance technique? I was just thinking of offering it to Lee." Hotaru nodded towards the boy ahead of them, "Even a basic callisthenics routine under the technique would make sure all of his muscles were up to standard."

He fielded their enquiries into the mechanics of the technique, and deliberately 'failed to notice' the way they were looking at each other.

Eventually Tsume piped up.

"How much you selling those for kid?"

"Hmmm..To help my friend survive, I'd make it a gift I think, for any additional seals… we'll it's my own original work, and I've never actually sold a seal that complex before." Hotaru thought it over out loud.

"I usually sell basic storage seals to the private shinobi supply stores for around 500 ryo a piece, and this seal is about 200 times as complex so I guess around 100,000 ryo?"

Tsume nearly choked on air at the thought of a ten year old creating an original jutsu 200 times more complex than a storage scroll, although if the technique really did what he said it did the complexity made sense.

"Ha! This is why you're still a brat! 100,000!? You've got to take supply and demand into account when you price things kid! How many people do you think have that kind of sealing knowledge? A seal like that should go for closer to three to five million ryo."

"Oh… Thank you for informing me."

As much as two or three S ranked missions. 'Even a Jonin would have to save up for half a year to afford that!'

"No sweat kid, Inuzuka don't cheat their comrades."

"Right, only their enemies."

"Hahaha! Now you're getting it shortstuff!" Hana laughed.

Hotaru's eye twitched. ' You're only a few cm taller than me!' Hotaru was, in fact, among the tallest in his class; moreover he had a significant amount of growing left to do, whilst Hana was in her mid teens, close to her full height. He decided to let it go - this was Kiba's sister, if he argued her rejoinder would no doubt be nonsense presented as fact if her brother was anything to go by.

"Wouldn't that leave me with a diminished customer supply though?"

"Not really by as much as you'd think. Higher missions pay pretty damn well, and the civilians wouldn't need it; you're really only missing out on the genin and newer chuunin, who wouldn't be able to afford it at the lower price anyway."

"Huh… That makes sense I guess, still I do know the inkless seal technique well enough to apply this seal, so given the ease of application, I think I could discount the cost down to say one million ryo provided someone doesn't insist on a drawn seal."

"Sold! We'll take five!" Tsume barked out.

Hotaru blinked. " Five!?" he said incredulously. The orphan inside him baulked at spending that kind of money so casually. The clans must be filthy rich.

"One each for me and Hana, one for Kiba - I can't let you give him a gift worth a million ryo - and one each for his cousins in the year below yours. Any other clansmen want them, they can fork up themselves. They should all be able to afford it if they aren't pissing their money away."

Hotaru tried to process the idea of being five million richer for what would amount to about ten minutes work.

"Well… I have plans for today after the Academy and for the weekend. I could come around and apply the seals late tonight, around sunset? It should really only take around ten minutes or so."

"Sounds good brat. We'll be expecting you."

The three of them made a little more small talk until Hotaru completed his fifth lap, and headed home via the marketplace where he could sense shops prepping to open as the pre-dawn gave way to sunrise. He'd sensed a delivery of fresh vegetables from the Land of Fire's farms last night, and for maximum freshness it was best to get them into stasis seals as soon as possible, which meant buying as soon as the delivery hit the shelves.

He had tried growing his food with wood release at one point, which had worked, but had also quickly stripped the soil in his planters of nutrients with repeated harvests, which made the vegetables grown in them worthless nutritionally. He planned to learn soil care methods at some point, he knew crop rotation was a thing, but hadn't gotten around to it. There were hundreds of far more important things to focus on - he could just buy food after all.

The sun was up by the time he got home, he quickly stripped off his clothes and threw them in the dirty laundry basket before stepping into his shower.

There was no shower head, instead a touch of chakra to the knob would cause a small dark cloud to form over the shower which would then rain warm water. He'd made that particular seal a few years ago, shortly after his parents died in order to save money on utilities, but he rarely bothered with it any more.

An effortless flex of his chakra formed a dozen swirling streams of water droplets with pure suiton manipulation, a second with katon warmed them. They flew rapidly over his body, scrubbing everywhere, before the water was pulled off and dispersed, leaving him dry. The overhead fan, a seal produced fuuton jutsu, quickly sucked the humidity out of the room.

A little bit of chakra run through the formula on a smooth flat stick with rounded ends produced a similar cleaning jutsu in miniature, which was deftly applied to his teeth, before a quick application of Sannin Jiraiya endorsed 'Sage' deodorant for shinobi. He'd picked it because the memories from his past life recalled a pornographic comic strip featuring the same. Obviously the real thing didn't drive women into a sexual frenzy like the one in the comic, nor had he expected it to; but he found it amusing nonetheless. It even looked the same.

It helped that what it did do, was a great job of suppressing a shinobi's natural scent and replacing it with the pleasant smell of the leaves common to the forests around Konoha. There were actually varieties for other regions too, but so far Hotaru had had no reason to purchase them.

He finished his morning ablutions by dragging his hands, formed into claws as if scratching a chalkboard, across a black tile next to his sink, which shaved off the day's worth of growth from his nails, filed and buffed them in one pass. Because screw cutting them manually every week.

Sometimes Hotaru pitied those less fortunate souls in the village who lacked the Uzumaki aptitude for sealing - honestly, what was the point of having pseudo-magical powers when you couldn't even use them to solve life's little annoyances.

Hotaru hadn't even pooped in years, a space time technique applied to his left hip created a small space-time technique that teleported waste directly to the sewers, then flushed out the lower bowel for good measure.

A second tile against the kickboard took care of his toes, and a brush pulled through his hair got out any knots that had formed overnight. He was fortunate that his hair already looked pretty good at this length if allowed to fall naturally.

It was good he reflected, to be him. His eyes wandered to the small shrine for his parents. Except when it wasn't.

He was broken out of his melancholy thoughts by the report from a clone he'd sent off to the borders of the land of Wind. It had been exploring the mountainous region for nearly three weeks now, and it had finally located its objective - the temple that housed the Gelel mine.

A feral grin spread across his face. Things were really going his way today - he had already been confident that the operation this weekend would go according to the plan, but this would nearly guarantee his success. Still, it could wait until tonight; he'd made it this far through extreme caution and patience far beyond his years, he wasn't going to ruin it now. He got dressed again, this time in his usual tracksuit, picked up a scroll containing his lunch - he did all of his cooking in batches on Sundays, portions kept oven fresh in stasis seals for the week - and set out for the Academy.

He refused to be one of those idiots who got themselves tortured and killed because they thought a little meta knowledge meant they couldn't fail. The fanfictions his past incarnation had read really underestimated the competence of shinobi. Standing out was Dangerous in this world, even in this, the nicest of the ninja villages, it was better to blend in until he was strong enough not to worry about how others reacted.

This was of course easier said than done, every village was on constant watch for infiltration. Hotaru had managed because of a combination of two factors. Firstly his power rapidly improved his acting skills when needed; Secondly for the most part he wasn't really acting - everything around him really was new, even the language, and he wasn't just some old guy shoved into the body of an infant. That person had died, he received his isekai reincarnation after his death, and it was just that, a reincarnation. He'd had a small amount of influence when Hotaru was still small, enough to start him practicing with his chakra early and to keep his unconventional knowledge of the world under the radar, but even that had faded almost completely by the time he'd started at the Academy.

This was Hotaru's life, his body, his parents, his friends. He just got a little leg up in the form of some outside context knowledge.

Hotaru had access to the memories, all of the knowledge and information he had possessed - even how he'd felt about subjects - but it was abstracted somehow, almost like watching a movie or reading a particularly detailed autobiography.

They weren't his memories, and the other guy wasn't in control. Which was for the good, because while Hotaru was loosely following that guy's plan (it was a good one in a general sense) it was very apparent to him pretty early on that he was a great deal smarter in this life than in the last - not surprising since that guy had chosen the genius origin. He'd needed to rework the plan a lot to avoid being interrogated, or just drafted into root.

Classes for the day had been as boring as ever, it was like they purposefully sucked the fun out of what should have been the most interesting curriculum ever. Hotaru had paid attention anyway. His life, or one of his friends' lives could depend on this information one day.

At least jutsu practice was interesting. In typical fashion Naruko (and that had been his first clue that things weren't all going to be how the other guy imagined) had gone from under powering her substitution so much that the log wasn't making it to her original location, to overpowering the technique to the extent that it had gone ballistic. At the speed it had been flying the log might very well have amputated Mizuki's everything had he failed to get out of the way.

She'd been yelled at and sent out of course, denied further practice in a subtle bit of sabotage.

Hotaru had caught Hinata's forlorn glance in Naruko's direction as she stomped out, even now her perseverance in the face of adversity helped inspire the shyer girl to push through her own troubles. She desperately wanted to be friends with Naruko but had yet to work up the courage to approach her.

Hotaru had been offering Hinata encouragement in the hopes of helping her self confidence for nearly a year and a half now, and had had some small success - she'd managed to timidly start three short lived conversations with Naruko this month - but had mostly just caused her to latch onto one of the only people in her life with a kind word to say. He wondered if the additional hate that she got from his fangirls for being one of the only three girls he paid any attention to was countering his efforts somewhat.

Recently she'd begun to blush and stutter more around him as well, and Hotaru had been worried that she was backsliding, until he noticed how her eyes would dip quickly toward his crotch every now and then, and remembered uncomfortably that girls usually started puberty earlier than boys, and Hyuuga could see through clothes. It hadn't taken him long to realise she'd been looking when she had the byakugan active during spars. Hinata was a pervert.

He'd giggled at that for a bit after realising, but his past life's experiences with puberty indicated that the chances of a person noticing the opposite sex for the first time not using that ability to peek a bit were basically zero, and he hadn't really cared about being seen, so he hadn't said anything.

Hotaru stepped up his pace as Naruko trudged away from the practice yard at the end of the day, looking forlornly at the genin hopefuls being picked up from school by their parents. Hotaru felt a twinge of his own grief that he ruthlessly squashed. He knew how she was feeling, his own more recent loss all the more poignant because he knew what he was missing, and yet at the same time far easier to bear with the knowledge that his parents had been there for him, and had loved him unreservedly. Naruko had been alone her whole life. At least he'd been more of a friend to her than her alternate's classmates had been to him.

"Naruko-chan!" her head snapped up as he called out to her and closed the distance. He could already see her mood lifting.

"Yo! Hotaru!" She gave a little wave full of false enthusiasm. "You need something?"

"Yep, want to hang for a bit? I've got some things I wanted to talk to you about, private like." he decided to sweeten the pot. "If you want, we could pick up a couple of bowls at Ichiraku, my treat?"

It was immediately obvious that he'd won her over - not that she was likely to decline to begin with - but he'd worked up an appetite in the sparring matches earlier (which Kiba had sat out on medical instruction with no small amount of grumbling).

"Sure! Let's go! C'mon!" She grabbed his hand and dragged him at high speed toward the ramen stand.

Ichiraku's wasn't too busy this time of day, so they'd gotten their ramen with a minimum of fuss,

aside from Naruko predictably trying (and failing) to squeeze an extra few bowls out of Hotaru; Naruko rocked some pretty high level puppy eyes when she put effort into it, but everyone close to her was used to her antics by now.

They made small talk while they ate, and then Hotaru led her up a building overlooking a park, where he could see younger children playing with each other while their parents chatted at the border. He'd picked it specifically for how easy it was to climb since Naruko couldn't walk on walls yet. Actually he wouldn't put it past her to be unaware that it was even possible yet.

He sat on the edge and patted next to him to sit down.

"So, I hear you're planning to take the early advancement exam?"

"Sure am 'ttebayo! I'm going to be the greatest Hokage ever!"

The Academy, outside of wartime at least, began at five years old. It ran for a minimum of five years, making the earliest one could graduate without special circumstances ten years old, however the full course was supposed to run for eight years. It was honestly pretty rare that they actually let someone graduate early since Itachi 'went rogue'. Hotaru honestly doubted that 'Naruto' would have been allowed to advance even if he'd passed the exam in the show. Which was probably why 'Sasuke' was still in the class too come to think of it.

"Hokage huh… You're really serious about that huh?"

"Believe it! I never go back on my words! That's my ninja way!" She jumped up, pumping a fist in the air.

"Hmm…" Hotaru leaned back a little and tilted his head to look up at her. "Why though? Why do you want to be the Hokage?"

"Because the Hokage is the greatest ninja in the village, and I'm going to become the greatest Hokage of all of them and then everyone will respect me!"

Hotaru chuckled a bit and Naruko glared down at him thinking he was laughing at her. He held up a hand in a peace gesture!

"I'm not laughing at your dream, it's just you've got it a little backwards."

"Hah?"

Hotaru mused that the screwed up face she was making was much cuter on her than it had been on her anime counterpart.

"You don't become respected by becoming the Hokage. It's just that you have to become respected first to become Hokage at all."

"Oh," Naruko sat down, face once again screwed up in thought.

"What is the Hokage to you? What do they do?"

"Gramps says a Hokage has to know over a thousand jutsu! They're the strongest ninja in the village that keeps it safe."

"That's true as far as it goes. But that's not all the Hokage does. They also have to do a whole bunch of boring paperwork that they have to pay attention to because it protects the village from being taken advantage of. They have to keep all the clans happy so they don't get into fights and destroy the village, and have meetings with a whole bunch of foreigners where they have to have good manners so we don't get into wars. And then even though they're stuck at their desk for most of the day they still have to find time to train and stay the strongest in case they have to fight…"

Naruko was looking a little down, so Hotaru changed track a bit - he had no intention of killing her dream.

"Do you know how this village started, Naruko? What makes it special, and different from the other villages?"

"Aaah, it was a bunch of boring stuff about negotiations and the Uchiha and Senju clans making friends I think." Naruko scratched her head.

"Hah! Boring? Let me tell you a story about the most awesome ninja who ever lived up until now!"

There was that spark of enthusiasm. Naruko was actually pretty easy to teach, you just had to know how to present information to make her interested.

"It started out with two boys skipping stones across a river. That one that runs along the base of the Hokage monument actually. They both had several brothers…"

"And then when Madara Uchiha was lying there defeated, Tobirama came over and went to stab him, and Hashirama stopped him. He made one final plea for peace from his old friend, and Madara said 'Fine, if you want peace either kill your brother, or kill yourself!'"

Naruko gasped, she'd really gotten invested in the story about one of her heroes by now.

"All of the Senju were angry, but Hashirama just smiled and thanked him for being kind enough to give him another option besides killing his brother. He took his armour off and he told all the Senju and Uchiha there, that his last wish was that they not kill Madara, and instead join together in peace to stop the killing. And then he drove his kunai into his gut."

"No!" Naruko gasped out.

"But! Just as the tip was about to cut into Hashirama's belly, Madara lunged forward and caught his hand!"

An explosive sigh of relief from Naruko nearly caused him to break into laughter.

"He said he had seen Hashirama's guts, and that there could be peace between their clans."

"Ha, that was awesome! That Hashirama dude was a total badass! Hey, hey, then what happened?"

"Well, then they began setting up a village at the base of the mountain where Hashirama and Madara first became friends. Lots of other ninja clans joined them. Afterwards a bunch of other villages formed because they were afraid of Konoha's power, which had grown far beyond any single clan. And Hashirama became the first Hokage." Hotaru twisted around and pointed to the leftmost face on the monument.

"So, do you get why Konoha is different from the other villages now?"

"Yeah! Our first Hokage was way more awesome and stronger than those jerks!" She punched her fist into the air in enthusiasm again.

"Haha! Not untrue exactly, but not what I was going for. No, Konoha is different from the others because of the reason it was made. Unlike all the other villages that were founded by fear, it's the only village that was created out of a hope for peace. It represents the dream that someday, everyone will put aside their hatred and work together to build something better, without the constant bloodshed. Konoha is the first step, proof that it's possible to find peace - even between two families that have been fighting each other for a thousand years."

Hotaru held Naruko's gaze. "The Hokage is the person who most strongly embodies the First's 'Will of Fire', who sees everyone in the village as their family, and works to protect them, even if it means they don't get much time with their own family, even if it means that sometimes they need to make horrible choices and give missions to their ninja they might not come back from. They are the ones who work hardest in the village, to try and maintain peace, so none of their family will need to die in an awful war."

"The whole village as my family." Naruko murmured, gaze a little vacant as she looked down on the few younger kids playing in the park.

Hotaru let her think for a moment while he considered how to proceed from here, to get the result he wanted. A little manipulative? Maybe, but everyone was manipulating everyone else all the time anyway. He at least didn't lie, or even really omit information when he could help it, and he was manipulating her exclusively for her own benefit, so he didn't feel bad about it.

"Do you think, knowing all that, that you can be that person Naruko? Do you still even want to?"

"Huh! You looking down on me? I said I was going to be Hokage, remember?! I'm going to do it! I'll just have to be even more awesome than I originally thought, that's all!"

Hotaru kept his gaze locked on hers until she calmed down a little.

"Okay."

"What?"

"Okay, I believe in you. I think you can do it. I'll help you do it."

Naruko's eyes got huge and round, and tears began to well up in their corners. Nobody had ever told her they believed in her dream before, not like they really meant it. Old man Hokage always just felt like a grandfather indulging his grandchild. Even Teuchi just joked about her finally picking up her tab when she made it to the top.

"Hoh? Are you crying Naruko-chan?" Hotaru teased gently.

"Shut up! I'm not crying," she turned away rubbing furiously at her eyes with one orange sleeve, "I just got a little dust in my eyes is all!"

"So, you know, I went and asked the Third if we were related yesterday. I needed to talk to him about other things anyway."

Naruko turned to look at him, "We aren't. I already know." She said simply. "I asked him why your parents weren't looking after me if we were from the same clan, years ago when we started classes together. He said I was named in honour of your clan because we didn't protect them from an attack or something."

That was a bald faced lie. Hotaru's mother had been the only other surviving Uzumaki when Kushina and she herself had been pregnant, naturally they were close. Hotaru remembered her complaining to both his father and to Uchiha Mikoto, when they thought that he was too young to understand - which he was, but Eidetic Memory meant he could recall the sounds of the conversation and he understood them now.

He knew that both his mother and Mikoto had tried to get custody of Naruko and both had been turned down by the tired and grieving Third. Mikoto due to various political concerns; his mother because they hadn't wanted it known that Naruko was connected to the Fourth, and his relationship with Kushina was hardly a secret. Giving Naruko the name she deserved was the one concession they'd wrung out of him.

Hotaru was left having to hold up the lie, for now at least. He had some ideas on how to give her the information she deserved.

"Yeah," he sighed, "that's what he told me too. Unfortunately that means I can't teach you any clan secrets."

Naruko groaned in despair. She was always fun to be around, so expressive and exaggerated.

"But! That doesn't mean there isn't a whole bunch that I can teach you!"

Her head whipped back to look at him, theatrics abandoned. He swore her eyes were sparkling.

"Huh?! You're going to teach me an awesome jutsu?"

"Follow me a moment." So saying, Hotaru jumped down onto a lower building, and then into the street, making sure to take a path Naruko could follow easily.

He led her over to a patch of dirt in the park and punched down with one fist. In front of him several small, uniform cubic blocks of stone rose from the ground, like the blocks children played with. He pressed the other hand down and a patch of ground turned to mud.

"These blocks represent the skills of a ninja."

Hotaru began to stack them in the mud. He got to the sixth block and the whole tower pitched to the side and collapsed. Hotaru put his hand on the ground and the mud dried, compacted into a perfectly flat surface. Even the mud from the bricks was sucked back into it. He began to stack them again, this time all ten blocks stacked up stably.

"Why did the first tower fall?"

"Because you built it on mud?" She looked at him like he was an idiot.

Seeing she didn't get it, he quickly took the blocks off the smooth patch and stacked them on the ground of the park. He got up to eight, but it was wobbly, and when he placed the ninth it fell again.

"The third tower wasn't on mud, but even if it was better it wasn't stable like the second. Why did it fall?"

Naruko squinted at him. "Because you didn't smooth down that bit of ground, it wasn't flat so the blocks wobbled?"

"Right. The floor you build a building on is called the foundation. It's the most important part of the building because if it's not right, the whole rest of the building will be unstable. Remember what I said? These blocks represent a ninja's skills. The floor is the foundation you build the skills on top of. The basic shinobi skills are that foundation. Before we work on anything at all, we need to fix your foundation. That means no awesome jutsu yet."

"What are you talking about? My ninja skills are awesome 'ttebayo!" Naruko shouted angrily.

He sighed. "Naruko, when we were doing the substitution drills today, many did you do before you got too low on chakra?"

"A whole bunch! I even did a few more than Sasuke!"

"Hmm, you did yeah. But I can sense chakra, you know? Did you know that you have way more of it than Sasuke? Probably 200-300 times as much. You might even have more than the Hokage."

"Really?!" she began jumping around with excitement, "Heck yeah, I'm awesome 'ttebayo!"

"Naruko!" he called sharply, he put a hand on her shoulder, "you didn't let me finish. You do have lots of chakra, and that is very awesome, but even so, you were only able to do a few more replacements than Sasuke. That means you were using 200-300 times more chakra on every jutsu than Sasuke was. You were wasting so much chakra that we could see clouds of it with our naked eyes. You probably have the most chakra of anyone in the village, true, but in exchange you have the worst control in the village. Chakra is the life blood of a ninja, you can't afford to be wasting it like that if you want to be Hokage."

Naruko looked devastated, so he continued on quickly.

"It's OK, I'll help you learn chakra control, and it's way, way easier to learn control than it is to grow your reserves. Most people will never have half as much chakra as you. It's a good problem to have. But it is still a problem, and recognising and admitting to problems is the first step to fixing them. Self assessment is an important ninja skill. So be honest with yourself, have a think, and tell me where you're good and what you need help with."

After a while, a grudging reply came. "My shurikenjutsu could be better, and my taijutsu. I've got really good stamina though, and I'm tough, and I'm great at setting traps. I still can't do the stupid clone either."

"All true. Well, there's a lot of things you missed, good and bad, but no need to depress you by listing all your faults out loud I guess, we can work on self assessment later, I have a pretty good idea of where you're at already."

"Before I teach you anything at all though, I need a promise from you. I'm going to be spending a lot of my time helping you, time I could be using to get stronger myself, and I'll be teaching you quite a few things that should probably stay in my clan. That's a lot of trust to give you. So what I'm asking from you is this: If I help you train, help you achieve your dream, you have to put your full effort into it. It's going to be boring, it's going to be repetitive. It's going to be constant hard work for at least a few years. I don't want you constantly complaining about how you would rather learn jutsu. There are no shortcuts on the path to being Hokage, you'll be drilling the basics into your head until I say that you're ready. You'll have to pay attention in the Academy too, I'll be quizzing you while we train to make sure you do, and you're not allowed to graduate early, even if you're able to pass the exam, you have to wait until thirteen to graduate with the rest of the class."

"What! Why?" she whined.

"You know the Hokage probably wouldn't let you graduate early anyway right, even if you passed? They only let people go through early now after some kind of disaster like the Kyuubi attack, where they need more recruits."

"What? No way!"

"Just wait and see. There's no way Sasuke won't try for early graduation, and you know he'll pass too, but he'll still be there in class when the next term starts. Anyway, that's my condition. If you can't even try in class, and put in your full efforts when you have someone helping you one on one without complaining, then you won't even make it as a kunoichi, let alone become Hokage."

He could already see the drive suddenly burning in her to prove herself with that last statement.

"Promise me. I know you won't go back on your word, it's your ninja way after all."

Naruko extended a hand, pinky raised, glaring intensely into his eyes as if daring him to question her commitment to earning the hat again. He clasped her pinky with his own.

"It's a promise!" She declared with a huge grin.

"Right," he nudged her shoulder with his own, "I'm glad you decided to train with me, can't have you being weak when you're running around representing the Uzumaki clan." He grinned to take any sting out of the words.

Naruko punched him in the arm anyway but only grumbled good naturedly.

"So I had an awesome idea for your training back when we were talking about how much chakra you have. I'm going to need to look up some things at home before we start, but I have other plans this weekend," he glanced at the gradually lowering sun, "and tonight too, so we'll start straight after the Academy on Monday."

Hotaru noted the sudden absence of the chakra traces from the Hokage's observation jutsu. It was so subtle, piggybacking as it did off of the village's detection barrier, that apart from the stronger members of the Hyuuga, he doubted there was anybody else with a fine enough chakra sense to detect it in the first place.

"Alright! I'm gonna be awesome! You'll see! Hey… Where are we going right now?" Hotaru had started walking a while back and she'd followed without thinking.

"I'm walking you home dummy." Hotaru laughed at her when she blushed.

"You don't need to do that!"

"I know."

For some reason, that matter of fact reply made her even redder. It wasn't until he was halfway home that he remembered that, as a girl, Naruko could also have started puberty already.

Sarutobi Hiruzen leaned back into his chair, letting his chakra fall away from the crystal ball that he focused his Tomegane jutsu through. He had a warm smile on his face, an ember of pride burning in his chest. The back breaking burden of holding up Konoha seemed to grow a little lighter, just a little bit.

That had been a riveting telling of the first Hokage's tale, more complete than any single telling he'd read in the library. It was almost as good as the first hand witness account he'd gotten from the Second in his youth. Young Hotaru must have pieced it together from multiple different sources in the library, he definitely spent enough time in there to have done so. It was certainly a more engaging telling of the village's formation than the version of events delivered at the Academy. Perhaps he'd have the boy write it down, to try to get the other students interested in the village's history.

And the way he'd tied it into the First's will of fire in a - seemingly successful - effort to inspire Naruko… Hiruzen shivered slightly, the conviction in Hotaru's words had reached even his guards, watching over his shoulder in a mix of curiosity and boredom. Even he had felt just a little more fortunate to live here afterwards. A symbol of the hope for peace. Hiruzen liked that interpretation. He liked it a lot.

He wondered sadly if it was a conclusion Hotaru had arrived at after the unfortunately violent deaths of his parents while away on missions, their losses in such close succession, only a year apart, were truly unfortunate, and had cost the village their greatest remaining seal master. Ten years ago they had six: Himself, Jiraiya, Minato, Kushina, Hotaru's mother Honoka, and just barely scraping into the title was Orochimaru. Now? They were down to two worthy of the title, and he was old, long past ready to retire, while Jiraiya was off collecting intelligence outside the village.

Privately he knew that part of the reason his former student spent so little time here in the village was because of Hiruzen's decision not allow him to take in little Naruko like her father had asked of him. The man had raged long and loud about that in the privacy of his office, but he had not relented and Jiraiya had left in a huff the next morning, his visits had been infrequent and to the point ever since.

"Was that story accurate, Hokage-sama?"

That was Raido, one of his guards today. He took a puff on his pipe.

"Yes, if I recall correctly it matches fairly closely with the story I got from the Second. I suspect he put the account together from several different sources in the library. None of the individual accounts are that complete."

Genma, standing in the other corner, rolled the senbon in his mouth to the other side and spoke up.

"We really got short changed in the Academy then, they made the village's history as boring as balancing account sheets."

"I do wonder how a brat that age came by such a thorough understanding of what it means to to be the Hokage though." Raido mused.

The Hokage made a little noise of agreement, he'd noticed the attitude shift from his guards while Hotaru had delivered that ringing endorsement of his position, just a little more reverence in their attention as they connected the description to the old man in their heads, and realised again just how much he had given for the village for a length of time longer than they'd been alive.

"It's good to know that the village will be in good hands with the next generation. Puts a bit of pep into an old man's step. In fact, I think I might just hurry through these last sheets and go home to see my grandson before his bedtime." He took another good puff from his pipe and began to scribble away again but then paused and looked up. "Do remind me to look in again on Naruko-chan after the Academy lets out on Monday. I'm rather curious to see what Hotaru-kun has come up with."

"Of course Hokage-sama. I'm curious about that myself. It isn't often that you see an Academy student that actually understands how important the basics are."

The scratch of a pen cheerfully put to paper was the only sound in the office for a good while.

---

Chapter 2

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Chapter 2

Hotaru dropped into the plush cushion next to his table. He flicked open the scroll he held in one hand that contained his dinner and formed a glass out ice with a small hyoton jutsu, pulling more moisture from the air to fill it; the super cold ice would keep the water cold and reduce dishes at the same time.

Hotaru had experimented in the past with capsules containing sealed food puree and water that would adhere to the stomach lining and automatically released measured amounts of their contents on a timer, but had found that he missed eating too much to continue using them. Not eating lunch had also been noticed by his teachers, who'd been watching him more closely than he'd realised following his mother's death.

That had resulted in twice daily visits from his guardian Gekko Hayate, who was his father's younger cousin, for nearly a whole year until the man was satisfied that he was looking after himself. He still made sure to look in occasionally, probably to check Hotaru's housekeeping, and Hotaru had to visit him each week to prove he was keeping up with his kenjutsu training, they usually had dinner together on those days. They'd nearly always gone out to eat until recently, when Hayate had landed Uzuki Yugao as a girlfriend. She'd insisted that he needed a home cooked meal. Neither of them had minded too much, she was a pretty damn good cook, and Hotaru appreciated her attempt to make him feel welcome in their lives.

In hindsight it was fairly obvious that, in a village where the primary occupation of a good chunk of the residents had a habit of leaving orphans, proper care for those orphans would be a priority. Everyone was well aware that it may just be their kids needing those services some day. The only reason Hotaru hadn't been pushed to live with Hayate was the man's own status as a Jonin, he would be out of the village frequently anyway, and even then Yugao had made overtures in that direction once or twice.

Of course, the primary tactic for orphan care was prevention. After his father had died, his mother had been relegated to relatively safe work until he was ready to graduate the Academy, mostly inside the village - nobody wanted to lose the last living Uzumaki seal master before she could pass on her knowledge either. It was just plain bad luck that on a routine mission to repair the seal work on the detection barrier for an outpost near the Land of Hot Water, a mission with no expectations of enemy contact, she'd been attacked while focused on her work by a Kiri missing nin, who'd already killed one of the chunin keeping watch in the outpost and had gone on to injure the Jonin stationed there as well. The remaining two chunin had driven him off with the timely help of pursuing Kiri hunter nin, who had been able to provide enough medical aid to stabilise the Jonin.

They hadn't told him the name of her killer, but he'd found out anyway. He was sneaky like that. Hotaru was happy that his meta knowledge painted Kurosuki Raiga as a deranged psychopath, he wouldn't have to feel conflicted about putting him down when he located him. He'd made sure to keep an ear out when chatting with the people of Konoha for any news of a 'Kurosuki family', or of trouble from the Land of Rivers ever since.

After finishing his dinner, a hearty vegetable stir-fry with strips of beef and cubes of fried tofu, he looked at the time longingly. He probably had time to deal with the Gelel vein now, but he was about to go to the Inuzuka compound, his impatience wasn't worth the risk of them smelling scents from outside the village on him, better to wait until after. It wasn't a large risk, but why take one at all when a little patience will bring the same results with complete safety? It was this attitude that had gotten him past any scrutiny that might have been levelled his way over the years.

Could he have gotten stronger faster if he took more risks? Indubitably. Could he have advanced the plan further already? Yes. But he didn't need to. Yes, things may be a little different from the meta knowledge his past life provided, but they didn't seem to be so different so far that he had to worry about enemies outside the village too much before he'd even graduated.

His slower approach also had other advantages. He'd made friends, built connections and explored every nook and cranny of the village that wasn't restricted, in the process discreetly casing out the locations of various homes and memorising the habits and patterns of various people. The Uzumaki chakra sensory jutsu Kaguya Shingan, which his mother had taught him, amplified and interpreted a chakra sensor's natural ability to the degree that it approached the ability of the byakugan. With it he could follow people around by just wandering around in the same general area of the village.

He'd made a reputation for himself, earning trust from a wide variety of people both civilian and ninja by generally being polite, helpful, and brightly curious. He'd shown himself to be studious, spending a great deal of time in the library, reading nearly two thirds of the scrolls and books available to Academy students and civilians (Eidetic Memory meant that he could just look at every page and read it in his head later), and helping the librarians re-stack the shelves at the end of the day, in the process gaining special early access to the genin section because the the librarians had vouched for him and requested it directly from the Hokage.

He would, of course, be taking more precautions against attack as the time depicted in the anime got closer but, as an example, the chunin exams didn't happen in Konoha every year, and Oto had only just been founded. They'd never manage to get a place at the next Konoha held set of exams, so he'd only need to really worry about a surprise invasion by Orochimaru and Suna on that one specific Chunin exam… Or if he sensed another Jinchuuriki close to the village.

No. He was sure he'd taken the right approach. There was no reason to break pattern now. Nobody else was going after the Gelel vein for years yet, it would still be there in a few hours time. Hotaru went about cleaning the house, doing the dishes and laundry and generally tidying up. Usually at this time he'd be experimenting, pushing the boundaries of ninjutsu, genjutsu and fuinjutsu, or doing hard physical taijutsu drills, but he wasn't in the mood right now, so instead he got tomorrow's chores out of the way. They were fairly easy anyway. Most things he'd long ago automated the cleaning of with fuinjutsu, and the ones he hadn't he could clean with jutsu manually.

When he was done with the rest of the house he moved into the room in the house that had made his efforts at discreet self improvement possible. The combination sealing room and study was the only room in the house opaque to the Byakugan and other sensory jutsu. His parents had set it up in order to hide clan secrets where the Hyuuga couldn't just read the scroll from the other side of the village.

It was a privilege only allowed to those recognised as clans by the village, although any civilian born ninja who was successful and prolific enough with creating their own jutsu could apply for clan status. It did come with the expectation that you would have at least four children to carry on the clan however, and you needed to provide some service to the village, such as the Uzumaki's sealing or the Nara's medicines. It also came with slightly higher tax rates.

Hotaru's opaque room had been broken into and searched by root while he was at the Academy several times after his parents' deaths, but they'd never found anything, everything of interest being well hidden by fuinjutsu, and it had been the work of moments for a sensor of his calibre to locate and dispel the observation jutsu they'd attempted to leave - both the obvious ones, the more subtle one it was hiding, and the actually sneaky one he was supposed to miss. The attempts had finally stopped when he made a complaint to the Hokage about six months ago. Although, come to think of it, they may have just given up after he got sick of the break-ins and covered every surface inside his house with a raiton seal set to discharge when touched by foreign chakra. He did smell something like bacon when he got home. He'd taken those seals down after a close call with an unannounced visit from Hayate.

Inside the unique room which was mostly empty and used by Hotaru for practice, was another gift from his former life. Two scrolls, much like his wardrobe scroll, hung from ceiling to floor and were completely invisible to anyone who didn't have the corresponding security seals on their body; which was just him now that his mother had passed.

The scrolls each housed a space time jutsu, that when charged would cause it to act like a door, leading to a small bubble of isolated space time. The scroll on the right led to a small Armoury stocked with kunai and various other bits of standard shinobi equipment. The left, which he activated and walked through now, led to the Shinobi Library. There had been some kind of genjutsu on the spaces inside the scrolls, presumably placed by the ROB that gave him his power, as his parents had never seemed to realise just how large and comprehensive the library it contained really was, nor did they ever notice the armoury restocking itself, just using them to store clan scrolls and their own weapons respectively.

This was where he'd learned the mechanics of chakra, of fuinjutsu, medicine and so much more. It was actually fairly sparse on techniques, but with what it did have he'd been able to develop, or in some cases reverse engineer, a large library of techniques of his own.

The true greatness of this space, and the opaque room outside of it however, was the privacy it offered. Hotaru's power, the Essence of Ideal Growth, allowed him to improve every skill and trait he had as if he was dedicating eight hours of training to each of them every day, without the drawbacks of diminishing returns, even if Hotaru himself did nothing but laze about all day. It was immensely faster if he actually trained, and faster still with a teacher, but the critical part of the process was that he actually needed to work at the thing he wanted to improve at least once in order to get it started.

Some things, like breath control, meditation and his chakra sense were easy to get started discreetly. Physical exercise could be passed off as the normal flailing of an infant (because an infant's flailing really was the baby building its strength up from zero) but… What would anyone watching think of a baby that suddenly started doing chakra control or elemental transformation exercises? This room was how he circumvented that problem. His mother had kept a cradle in the room to keep him in while she worked on her own seals, it was the short breaks when she left the room, to go to the toilet, or put dinner on etc. that gave Hotaru the opportunity to get some practice in, in order to get the ball rolling. It didn't take all that much, he figured out how to mould chakra the tenth time she left him in there for a good 5 minutes. Sticking his blanket to his face with chakra repeatedly was his first real exercise. It took a few months to get that started. Mostly because he needed to be able to carry his own head.

That was the time in his life when the other guy had had the most control, actually able to move his body directly, insofar as his body could move at the time. That had all but disappeared when Hotaru had gained self awareness, but his power didn't care that the other guy had been the one directing his exercises, it still counted them as having been done by Hotaru himself. Oddly, shadow clones did not enjoy the same benefits.

A clone training in a skill would not activate the higher rate of improvement from the essence; and to get a skill started the original Hotaru still needed to put some manual effort into it.

This didn't mean clones weren't useful though. They might not get super learning powers, but they did still learn, and Hotaru was no slouch on the intellectual front. Most of his original jutsu development, and much of his research and experimentation had taken place here, by clones he left behind when he went to the Academy.

Hotaru went over to the cages along one wall, sealing the mess, and adding some fresh hay, before refilling the food and water bowls inside. Then he paused to give some attention to Science! VII, Innovation! II and Discovery! XXIV.

They were a rabbit, a piglet and a mouse respectively, and were the last in a series of test animals of their same name. They'd all survived long enough for him to iron out the kinks in his bloodline implantation jutsu, which he now considered about as safe as you could ever reasonably expect a change in one's genetics to be. Science!, Innovation! and Discovery! were all the proud (temporary) bearers of the byakugan. Unfortunately, while byakugan bearing animals were kind of cool, he'd need to return them to normal before he gave them away. He already had some civilian children whose parents were alright with him giving them pets lined up for their retirement. Hotaru had treated them as well as he could, but there was always some discomfort involved in being literally rewritten, so the critters had well and truly earned good homes.

This weekend, Hotaru would be integrating his first Doujutsu kekkei genkai. It had been child's play to get all kinds of blood and chakra samples during the taijutsu spars at the Academy, seals on the hands to pull a little blood from under the skin, and drain a little chakra into a storage formula had done the trick. He'd gotten both the Hyuuga and the Uchiha bloodlines that way, but he was opting to get the byakugan first due to his map of the sharingan .

This was the reason the Gelel vein find was so timely. He'd not risk altering the procedure itself, but a Gelel stone would still speed up his recovery measurably.

Realising he'd gotten distracted petting Science! and that it was time to go see the Inuzuka, he locked him securely in his cage, and made his way out of the house, breaking into a swift jog towards Kiba's house.

As he jogged, he watched the shadows from the setting sun play over the monument. He snorted as he imagined Naruko's mug up there, grinning stupidly next to her father, hair up in twin tails threatening the structural integrity of the mountain.

Naruko's boob deficient counterpart had vandalised it at one point, hadn't he… It might be amusing to make a few changes himself. 'I could glaze the whole thing in full colour, like they do with ceramics. ' he mused to himself. 'The prank would be doubly funny because they'd probably keep it, and their pride wouldn't let them allow the glazing to fall into disrepair.' Thoughts for a later time. The Third was pretty damn savvy, he'd probably just order Hotaru to maintain it himself.

Barking greeted him as he approached the Inuzuka clan holdings, he'd deliberately come around to approach from upwind, and he no doubt still smelled of Science!'s rabbity fur. He slowed to an easy walk for the last 10 metres, and was unsurprised to find that Hana was opening the door already. They had been expecting him after all.

"Evening Shortstuff!" She positively chirped at him.

'Ah, she noticed the twitch this morning. She knows the height thing got to me and she's challenging me to say something about it… now, how to play this?'

"Evening Inuzuka-san, are you ready for your seals?"

"Just Hana's fine kid, and yeah, everyone's waiting in the living room." She moved to one side and gestured past herself in the direction of the living room.

Hotaru moved past and paused to look sideways at her, relaxed grin still in place. "By the way, Hana-san, in just a few short years, I am going to tower over your shortstack self, and when that time comes? Well, I'll try to be gracious about it, if only to save myself having to lean over all the time to hear your comebacks."

"Hahaha!" Hana broke out in actual laughter, having thought he'd backed down. "Good one shorty, but your shortness isn't physical. It's a state of being shared by all runty younger brothers and their runty friends."

"So my height is just a result of my association with Kib-" his response was cut off on a signal from Hana as she played the unblockable Haimaru Triplets card and he was bowled over by the greeting of three enthusiastic nindogs. He could have easily dodged, but that would have hurt their feelings… And dogs were cute.

Hana, once again laughing at him as he tried to ruffle the heads of three playful dogs at once, moved past him into the living room. Eventually, Hotaru managed to follow her, the triplets trailing after him. One of them was still snuffling and licking at his hand.

"Evening everyone." Hotaru gave a small wave as he walked in. A whole bunch of people were there. Tsume, Hana and Kiba of course, as well as Kiba's cousins, both girls a year younger than them and what must be the girl's parents. As well as one female clan member a few years older than Hana, another Inuzuka couple around Tsume's age and two males around the same.

"Hotaru? What are you here for?" the ever clueless Kiba asked. Unlike Naruko who'd missed a lot of foundational learning and suffered from neglectful teachers and inadequate support from the orphan services, Kiba just wasn't all that bright. You couldn't ask for a better or more loyal friend however, at least without resorting to an actual dog.

"I'm here to make everything you do for the next few years much harder." Hotaru joked, it was technically true after all, if a little misleading.

Naturally, Tsume caught on immediately and decided to join in on the fun.

"That's right kiddo, I'm paying him a million ryo to make sure that you can't take it easy again until after you graduate!"

Kiba looked appalled at this revelation.

"But that's not fair!" he whined, "You and Hana made me sit out today, I didn't wanna! Why not give me a million ryo instead, I'll train super hard for it!"

The other adults were chuckling at him. It was starting to make Kiba confused and a little angry, so Hotaru defused the situation so he could get to work.

"Relax buddy, your mum's just paying me to put a resistance seal on a couple of you, so it'll be like wearing weights all the time when you train."

"Oh, you could've just said that!" he growled. Then thought for a moment and snapped out "Hey! That's not fair, I'll lose all our spars at the Academy!"

Hotaru rolled his eyes, "Kiba, you've never beaten me in a spar once, and I've been wearing this seal for years now. You might lose a lot at first, but if you work hard you'll get used to it in no time, and then you'll be way stronger than most of our classmates."

Kiba scowled at him for bringing up his zero win record in front of his family, but was mollified when Tsume spoke again. "Well, you probably won't be alone for too long. If these work as well as Hotaru-kun claims, I'll be recommending them to the other clans. You'll probably see your classmates with them soon enough. They could be a big advantage to the village."

"And if Tsume says they're working as advertised after she has hers on, we'll all be buying one from you too." one of the single men gestured around at his fellow Inuzuka.

"About that," Hotaru looked around, "Do you have a room with a few square metres of clear floor space and some privacy? You realise that for a full body seal like this that targets and adjusts every muscle individually, you're going to have to be naked while I apply it since I'll have to run my hand across basically your whole body?"

"Bah! Nobody here has anything everyone else hasn't seen at the clan's communal baths. We'll just shove the table out of the way and do it here."

There were nods all round. Ninja tended to be fairly lax about nudity, and the Inuzuka clan was even more dismissive than most. It was no skin off of his back, so he just shrugged and nodded while the Inuzuka cleared some floor space. Eventually he was alone in the centre of the room while the others stood around the edges. The older couple sitting on the table up against the wall.

"Alright, whoever's going first strip down and stand inside the circle in the centre of the seal formula." Hotaru stated matter of factly. While he spoke he lazily flipped through about 50 seals at speeds that made his hands appear to blur into a single misshapen lump. Eyes widened around the room as with a tap of his foot a huge and incredibly complicated formula spread out.

Tsume whistled lowly in appreciation. "Hot damn brat! I don't think your mother could have done that in thrice that amount of time! Do you do anything besides practice sealing?"

Hotaru shrugged. "Mum died because she had to pay attention to her sealing and couldn't stay aware of her surroundings… I

I figured that if I could work fast enough…" He trailed off then shook his head, "Yeah, I do practise a lot."

Which was true, if a little misleading. For a little bit he'd felt like an imposter, pulling ahead of his peers because of the circumstances of his birth. Then he'd looked at it rationally. It was really no different to the bullshit hax the sharingan bestowed on its strongest users, that was just how the world worked - some people were born lucky, and others weren't. He couldn't and wouldn't ever be able to do anything about that. All he could do was train hard so he could at least feel like he earned the powers he had.

Hotaru tried not to stare, turning away politely as Tsume casually shrugged off her clothes. This was actually the first real naked woman he'd seen that wasn't related to him.

Technically he'd seen several dozen, the scanning jutsu he'd created to partner with the henge meant that his transformations were perfect, right down to hidden freckles and internal organs. But, illogical as it was, it was somehow different when it was a clone, knowing it was him inside its head.

Hotaru was eminently glad that random erections weren't a problem he had to deal with yet - Tsume was a handsome woman, and the slight slowdown of ageing experienced by powerful chakra users meant that she was still in the back-end of her prime years despite being in her mid forties; her skin retained quite a bit of its youthful elasticity, nearly wrinkle free and she had no grey in her hair. Even her generous bust had yet to begin sagging. He suspected he would be incredibly glad for Eidetic Memory a couple of years from now.

"What's the matter brat? Afraid to look?" Tsume laughed at his apparent embarrassment. "Do you even chase after girls yet?"

"No actually, still prepubescent here, sorry. I was just trying to be polite." He stepped closer, and took her hand in his running the other hand up her arm as more technique formula spread across her skin, advancing like a wave of crawling black ink in advance of his hand, the leading edges blazing blue with chakra. He came back and trailed up the underside of her arm. By the time he was done it looked almost as if her arm and hand was covered in a black glove, tiny characters packed densely enough that barely any skin was visible. He continued over her armpit, surprisingly shaven, and down her sides avoiding any touches that might be considered rude where possible, deftly he moved down one leg to the foot, then back up the rear of the same leg. Across the behind, down the other leg and back up the front where he dragged the trail to he arm, two passes on the arm and he was free to finish her back, which he ended in a spiral matching the one now scrawled on her stomach, though this one turned clockwise to the front spiral's counter clockwise.

A final pass over her neck and face, and not two whole minutes later he was done, Tsume stood there nearly completely black from head to toe.

"Alright, I'm going to activate it, it'll feel a bit invasive, almost like a genjutsu, don't fight it."

Hotaru poured in chakra, lighting up the entire seal, then flipped through a few dozen hand signs to set the encryption key, and poked the spot just between Tsume's left shoulder and left breast. The seal writhed, then was sucked into the point he'd touched like water down a drain hole, even the part written on the floor. At the end, all that was left was the silhouette of a stylized dog holding a dumbbell with a spiral of characters leading out from it. The whole thing was about the size of a large coin.

Tsume's breathing grew heavy, as her heart and diaphragm were also affected by the seal, though obviously to a much lesser degree. "Don't mind that, the seal will shut off for a particular area if it detects an individual muscle group getting unduly stressed. You're going to feel like you're doing cardio pretty frequently for the next few weeks. Your eyes will get tired a lot too… If you decide to take a break or you need to leave the village for a mission, channel some chakra into the seal and make the rat, then the boar hand sign. To reactivate it, chakra and boar then rat."

She began to move around, stretching and jogging a bit to get a feel for it. "You can put your clothes on now by the way." he stated drily.

She just grinned at him and turned to her family. "Seals good. Go ahead and buy it."

Hotaru set up another seal on the floor. "Who's next then?"

Hotaru flopped back on his bed, holding a scroll above himself and looking at it in wonder. Eleven million ryo. Everyone there but the mother of the twins had purchased the seal. The whole thing had only taken about a half hour, plus some snacks and chatting with Kiba's immediate family after everything was done.

Eleven million. That was enough, when added to his other earnings from selling basic seals like scrolls and explosive tags to various shops in the village, to buy the plot of land his parents had had their eye on for a proper clan compound. They'd been planning to have more kids when they had enough money saved up to move there. They'd gotten about halfway there, but he wasn't able to access the money beyond what his trust allowed before he hit chunin.

He'd been planning to save up and buy the lot himself when he made chunin - having figured that, if he was frugal and sold plenty of seals, he'd have made up the other half by then when you added in mission pay - but he'd never imagined a windfall like this one. He hadn't really realised how incredibly valuable a seal master of his calibre was. He knew intellectually that they were rare, and usually uninclined to share their greater works, but this was the first time he really understood just how much he could make selling seals.

He flipped back to his feet and went into the library, placing the seal on the desk.

'Kage bunshin no jutsu!'

Poof! A clone burst into being with only the tiniest puff of smoke, barely there at all.

The clone would serve as insurance in case someone visited unexpectedly, as unlikely as that was at this hour - especially with Hayate out on a mission.

'Hiraishin!'

Hotaru reappeared at the base of a huge temple nestled within a rocky valley. Right on top of the marker left by his clone that morning.

His clone hadn't sensed anyone remotely in the vicinity that morning, and nothing seemed to have changed. This should be a proverbial milk run… If he hadn't just jinxed it. Still, he doubted anything would go wrong.

His chakra sense was probably his most developed skill, having been among the very first things he'd begun cultivating with his essence, and one that he'd trained near constantly with throughout his life.

If the rule of thumb was 10,000 hours of meaningful practice to truly master a skill, then the nearly 30,000 hours his essence would have given him, without any extra effort, over the course of ten years would put him in the class of legends all on its own; he had worked on the skill however, and the speed of improvement was massively larger when he did so. He was probably closing in on the region of 100,000 hours worth of improvement.

Where only a few years ago he'd needed to be within a few kilometres to track a target, needing to wander into the same sector of the village to bring them into range, by this point in time his senses had extended far beyond the borders of the village. It was an ability firmly moved into the realms of the superhuman by the limit breaking nature of his power. If his chakra sense said nothing was there, he trusted it… At least, as much as a ninja ever trusted anything.

He walked unhurriedly through the unnecessarily gigantic arch into a proportionately huge circular room. The entire thing was encircled by a walkway, but large parts of it had collapsed at some point. Hotaru paused to take in the majestic scenery; this was the first place he'd actually been to outside of the village in person after all, save for an extremely brief trip to the Uzumaki mask shrine just outside the walls with Hayate, shortly after his mother passed away - and that barely counted in Hotaru's opinion. He'd taken the shinigami's mask and sealed it on his arm while he was there and Hayate had been busy looking around.

Crossing the bridge in front of him to the three raised cylinders in a clover pattern, he searched around on the floor until he found the sliding tile and nudged it with his foot. There was a bit of a groan, but soon the whole platform was descending into the ground. He was impressed that the mechanism still worked, but questioned the design sense - why make a ten metre tall platform for an elevator that only went into the floor? The only conclusion he could reach was that the civilisation that built the mine were a bunch of drama queens.

When at last the elevator stopped, what had to be half a click underground judging by the speed of descent and travel time, the doorway opened into another ridiculously massive, and completely barren, round room. This one at least looked to be in fairly good repair - comforting given the amount of rock overhead.

He walked around, wondering what he was supposed to do for a little while before he got a little nudge, but not from the other guy. Although this felt like it came from the same place, it was somehow colder, heavier almost. He looked at the summoning formula on the floor. According to the other guy's memories, that would summon a space-time rift to consume the mine, and the temple above when activated with the blood of the royal family of the kingdom that built the mine.

Now he walked over to it and slashed his own palm deeply with a blade of wind, letting the blood fall on the array. His hand had healed by the time the blood hit the floor. The ROB that reincarnated him had apparently made some changes - when activated by Temujin or some other member of his bloodline, the vein would be destroyed. When activated by him, the vein would instead be claimed and moved in accordance with the CYOA document that 'that guy' had chosen his origin from.

"Oops!" He jumped back to the temple entrance with the Hiraishin, then lifted off the ground with the Doton: Keijūgan no Jutsu (Lightened Boulder Jutsu) which he had definitely not reverse engineered and shamelessly ripped off of the Tsuchikage. Nobody could prove anything.

'That was close - the rift might not be destroying the Gelel vein, but judging from the spatial distortions I wouldn't have a good time if it'd caught me.'

He hung in the air for a couple of minutes, then decided that the process wasn't going to get more interesting and flashed back to his library in Konoha.

His heart was thumping in his chest. Not from the near miss, but from the fact that this was the first event that he'd caused which had potential to cause real changes on the macro scale. It was unlikely, nobody had been close by after all, certainly not close enough to see anything, but the noise and the tremors from the rift might be enough cause for Suna to send an investigation.

There wouldn't be much in the way of traces after the rift was done - the vein hadn't spilled over this time - but those would be people that would not be assigned to the missions they otherwise might have taken. Knock-on effects would follow. Whether they were far reaching enough to reach Konoha any time soon was another question altogether.

An out of place detail caused his head to whip around. There, on the table next to the scroll containing the Inuzuka's payment, was a tan book with golden squares in the corners. The book of Gelel. Instructions on how to use the vein.

He'd have a look over it come morning. Right now he was ready for bed. He put the book down. 'Densō no jutsu.' He pulsed an original jutsu that propagated the users mentality within any shadow clones he had active. Originally he'd made it so clones could share info without popping, but he'd quickly found it was usable from his end as well and was excellent for giving them instructions and co-ordinating them in spars, though he'd been limited to just two vs two fights inside the study.

When the clone entered the room he quickly dispelled it, waited a few moments then left the library to look at the last thing the clone had seen.

On his wall, to the left of the library, was a new scroll hanging. Having a pretty good idea already, he powered it up and stuck his head through.

'Yep, that's the vein alright.' Hotaru shook his head, he'd not expected it to end up somewhere so convenient.

Well, it would keep. He went to his bedroom and stripped, throwing his clothes in the washing basket, and slipped naked under the covers. 'On'na bunshin no jutsu.' with a little puff, a beautiful naked red head appeared, looking like nothing so much as a young Kushina - though still a few years older than himself - she deftly slipped under the covers and cuddled up to him as he settled in to go to sleep.

Focusing in on his navel, he began pouring all of his remaining chakra into the seal there. It contained one of his greatest creations - the energy vessel. Taking a design cue from that guy's memories, he'd used onmyōjutsu supported by massive amounts of fuinjutsu to create an orb that would accept and store chakra for later retrieval. If that was all however, it wouldn't be all that impressive. What made it special was the other two properties it possessed: first, it had no maximum capacity. When more chakra was added and the vessel was at capacity it would simply use a portion of that chakra to grow.

The second feature was what made Hotaru so proud of his invention - it could generate its own chakra to refill itself. Just like natural chakra coils that would refill with a good night's sleep so long as they weren't drained to the point of chakra exhaustion, the energy vessel would refill overnight after being expended, so long as it wasn't drained to the point that the whole technique collapsed in on itself. And just like natural chakra coils, it would retain any growth to its maximum size permanently.

Hotaru had been pouring his chakra into the vessel before sleeping each night ever since he'd created it and it was getting pretty big by now. He thought that by the time he graduated it might very well match the reserves of Matatabi, the two tailed beast.

Feeling himself getting low on chakra, he stopped channelling. There was no need to worry about being low if an emergency occurred during the night - if he needed chakra he could simply draw it from the vessel.

'Today was a good day.' He thought to himself happily as he drifted off to sleep.

---

Chapter 3

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Chapter 3

Hotaru sat in a comfy chair in his library, reading the book of Gelel whilst a clone prepared an operating surface in the background. On his right, laying open on the table was a scroll bearing a prepared seal that had already been activated. The formula contained enough sealed chakra to make a shadow clone, the formula for the kage bunshin jutsu and was set to go off on a timer.

This was a precaution for after the surgery. Whilst sleeping was possible if the user was skilled enough in the technique, the clones were always dispelled by an involuntary wave of chakra that was released when the user was rendered unconscious. Once the user was unconscious however, a clone was fully capable of existing as long as its chakra supply lasted. This seal was Hotaru's work around; if the surgery knocked him out, then this scroll would produce a clone that could field any unexpected visitors, address any issues with the surgery, or in the worst case seek outside medical attention. He had a fairly good idea of where to find Senju Tsunade if it became necessary, and he could cover ground extremely quickly with the hiraishin.

Not that he was expecting any issues. He would not be doing this if he wasn't confident of total success without complications. His confidence was actually the main reason for his caution. It was always a good idea to guard against becoming cocky. That was where Murphy got you. He was rather fond of that particular idiom from his past life, if summed up life as a ninja perfectly.

The Gelel energy was fascinating, the kingdom far older than he'd realised, and with the help of his meta knowledge, Hotaru was able to read between the lines and put the pieces together to figure out what had most likely really happened.

The kingdom had been mining deep underground when they'd accidentally cut into the roots of a great tree. Realising the miraculous qualities of the liquid when it contacted a wounded miner and healed his injuries, the miners had tapped the root and dried the sap into amber to make it easier to work with.

Hotaru realised with shock that the crazy sons of bitches had tapped the roots of Kaguya's God tree. They must have been so far out that she'd not noticed. The 'stones' of Gelel were the amber of the god tree, saturated in its incredible life force.

The problems had started for the kingdom after Kaguya's rampage, when she'd merged with the main body of the tree she'd cut-off the roots. They'd still produced Gelel sap, but in much reduced quantities, a trickle compared to the steady stream it had produced before.

The current king of the civilisation that relied on the resource for basically everything, was a sadistic asshole - Hotaru was paraphrasing here - named Jashin, and he'd figured out how to extract life force from normal people, sending his subjects out to raid nearby kingdoms for sacrifice's to fuel their empire.

Then Otsutsuki Hagoromo had finished kicking his mother's ass and started travelling to preach his ninshu. Being a good guy, he'd gotten understandably pissed when he'd seen what the kingdom was doing to their neighbours. He'd promptly smacked them down and, seeing that Jashin had gorged himself on so much life force that he was a pain to kill, had taken the easy route and sealed him away.

Hotaru remembered several historical accounts from Konoha's library that mentioned an insane religious cult that kept popping up over the centuries, featured a deity of the name Jashin, and was said to have incredibly sadistic practices. The memories of his past life provided an image of an Akatsuki member named Hidan.

Suddenly he had the sickening suspicion that the two were not unrelated at all, and that Hagoromo refusing to pull the finger out of his behind and put in the effort to kill Jashin permanently had left the elemental nations dealing with a case of "sealed evil" for the last thousand years.

He thumped his head on the table. He was the only one who knew. It was going to have to be him that fixed the situation, wasn't it.

Groaning one last time he stood up. This was a problem for later, Jashin had kept for an entire millennium, he could cook for a little longer. He'd have to deal with Hidan coming for the Jinchuuriki anyway.

Seeing the clone was done he nodded to it, but didn't dispel it until after he had checked its work thoroughly. If he'd dispelled it earlier then the clone's knowledge of its own work would have contaminated his inspection. Finding nothing wrong, he went over to a rack containing several large scrolls with bright red backing, taking the one labelled "Byakugan" and double checked it too, before placing it in the small circle of the formula reserved for the template.

These templates, or rather, the means to produce them, as well as the formula which made use of them that he was about to activate, had been the thing he'd worked towards the most over the years. These were the first and most important components in the other guy's 'plan for unlimited power'.

They were a record, produced by yet another seal from a genetic sample, of a kekkei genkai. A full breakdown of the ability into a fuinjutsu formula of incredible intricacy. If one had the skills to decode the template, it was even possible to perform most bloodline techniques - including doujutsu - as ninjutsu. Provided of course that you also had the skills to perform the jutsu.

That didn't mean it was a good idea; some of the adaptations recorded in the template could be physical - when Hotaru had attempted to use the byakugan without integrating the bloodline it had worked… For about two seconds, then he'd burst several blood vessels - and ruptured the chakra coils - around his eyes. It had taken a full day to heal fully, even with his regeneration. That had been an unpleasant day.

Satisfied that everything was correct, he stripped down naked and lay down on the altar, then dumped chakra into the formula's storage. He emptied the bulk of his own reserves and a good three quarters of his energy vessel on top. He was taking no chances that the process would run out of power before it was complete.

Finally, after years of development, he was ready.

Hotaru triggered the formula, and everything went dark.

A puff of smoke heralded the creation of the backup clone. It looked over at the original laying on the sealing altar cum operating table, it was indistinct, slightly transparent and a little blurry at the edges, though he doubted someone without his enhanced Eyesight would notice. Occasionally, ripples of chakra would sweep from the head to the feet.

The indicators he'd added to the formula for proper records when testing indicated thirty minutes had passed and twenty percent completion. About two hours left then. The rabbit had only taken about ten minutes, but the piglet took longer. The mice were thirty seconds, at the most. The time taken by the seal was dependent on the amount of cells that needed altering.

Hotaru grinned with pride seeing his masterpiece at work. Orochimaru and Hiruko would go green with envy if they knew it existed. Rochi in particular would probably happily smash his own nuts in a vice to get a copy of it.

'Heh, too bad for him that he went missing-nin. I don't share my work with traitors.'

Besides the chakra storage and monitoring systems, the jutsu functioned in two parts. The first was an array of a special type of sealed clones of his own design, he called it the Nento bunshin (mind clone). These autonomous, low cost, brain only clones were sealed in large numbers of life supporting seals that also linked them together to form a kind of 'cloud computing' super-processor.

The scanned information of the subject and the data from the template would be fed into the processor which would then work out what each cell should 'look like' right down to the DNA. Finally, the subject would be loosened from reality and each cell replaced by a process based on the Uchiha's Izanagi. Essentially, when boiled down, the jutsu imagined the subject having the kekkei genkai, then made that dream a reality.

Now if only he could work out why Izanagi - or at least a technique based on it - would work for him, but the full Banbutsu Sōzō (Creation of All Things) remained out of reach. Was it just that he'd successfully performed the jutsu for the basic sharingan a couple of times? Had that changed something?

The clone puttered around for a bit, then decided to get the removal of the byakugan from the animals out of the way while he had spare time anyway.

Even after most of the floor space was freed up by sealing the furniture on the walls, there wasn't enough room for four of the huge formula in the room, so the mouse Discovery! was getting its original genetics back first, then that space could be reused for Science! whilst Innovation! who'd take the longest would use the second space.

Fortunately he had plenty of chakra for these smaller operations. The original was probably being overcautious by using as much as he did on himself - Clonetaru predicted that most of the chakra taken from the energy vessel would need to be reabsorbed afterwards.

The clone peered at the clock once all the animals were back in their cages and recovering from their operations. Still an hour and twenty to go. Feeling bored and having no chores left to do, but not feeling like training, left Hotaru at something of a loss. He supposed he could meditate?

He spied something on the table, having returned all the furniture and shelving that wouldn't interfere with the active seal to their rightful places already. The book of Gelel.

'Well, might as well get something productive done.' He grinned to himself. There was Science to be done!

Hotaru came to, to a bizarre but not unpleasant sweet/salty taste in his mouth, a slight ringing in the ears and a full body ache. His brain and the region around his eyes felt like they were on fire, the eyes themselves felt like a red hot spike had been driven into each of them.

A hand was placed on his chest forcing him to remain prone. His clone swept the mystic palm over his body, only having learned it recently he was restricted to diagnosis, but he could at least determine if something was wrong most of the time - the higher level medical texts were restricted to shinobi of chunin rank and above or trusted hospital staff.

Finding nothing wrong, the clone pressed something warm and smooth to his chest above the gate of death, pushing it into him then placing a seal on the location when its hand made contact with his chest. Then grasped his arm and pulled him upright. Already the after effects of the procedure were beginning to fade.

"Don't dispel yet, did everything go well?" Hotaru really didn't want to deal with a couple of hours worth of memories with this headache.

"Smooth as Kiba's brain." The clone gave him a thumbs up. "We just need to drain all that extra chakra back into the energy vessel before it detonates… You overshot the mark by way too much."

Hotaru shrugged, "Better than undershooting."

The clone just nodded. "I fixed up our furry friends while I waited."

Hotaru rubbed his head. "Poor little guys, I hadn't realised the aftermath hurt quite so much. I feel like I should do something extra nice for them before I give them away."

"Funny you should mention that…" the clone hedged.

"What did you do?" He said flatly. Shadow clones could be funny sometimes. You had to keep an eye on them. Hotaru had mostly gotten around their reluctance to do chores in his place through his unusual mindset with regards to them: when they dispel, they don't disappear, they become part of the future him. Future him would get both sets of experiences either way, so it was better that the body that would persist after the merger be the one that relaxed. Of course it helped that he wasn't all that bothered by chores to begin with, his ninjutsu was good enough to take care of them trivially.

"Well, after I finished with the animals, I found myself at a loose end, so I started playing around with the Gelel vein…"

"Please tell me you didn't turn the animals into Gelel mutants." Hotaru pleaded.

The clone snorted.

"Of course I didn't, who do you take me for, that hack Orochimaru?" Clonetaru put on an offended air making him chuckle. Idly he wondered if laughing at your own jokes was still pitiable in this situation. "I invented a whole new branch of fuinjutsu that uses chakra to tune the Gelel to the implantee's own life energy so that they can utilise it to the full extent without becoming some kind of grotesque mutation… and then I had a brainwave and realised that the new seals controlled life force, so I used mokuton to grow some trees in a planter, drew a little sap and used fuinjutsu to condense the life force of the trees into the sap and repeated the process until I got this." He held up a small cup of what looked a lot like a duller form of the Gelel liquid.

"Huh…" Hotaru needed some time to process the efforts of what might be the most productive single clone he'd ever made through the slowly fading headache. "Neat." 'He/I made bootleg God tree sap…' He shook his head.

"So you implanted the animals with Gelel?"

"Just a little chip each. It would suck for Discovery!'s new owner if the little guy died of old age a few months after getting him."

He thought it over, then sighed. "I suppose that will work. Alright then, hit me with the memories."

POOF! and ah, there was the headache again. He went to his room and flopped down, still naked on top of the covers. A nap sounded good right now.

Hotaru woke up again around mid afternoon, he wanted to avoid using any more chakra today unless strictly necessary, just to let his body acclimate. He was going to take the animals to their new owners, but he'd left them in the library and the door had powered down already by now.

Instead, he thought he would go and see Ino, Shikamaru and Choji. Perhaps they could catch the new Princess Gale movie, or if they weren't interested, Shika would probably be down to waste some time on a game or two of shogi. Either way he could burn a couple of hours there, then spend the evening running taijutsu drills, just so he'd be tired enough to sleep. Saturday was a light training only day after all.

Hotaru trained hard on Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays. Hard enough to get on Might Gai's radar, but he also knew that rest days were important - both for building strength, and for avoiding burnout, therefore Saturday was relegated to a relatively light training routine, and Wednesdays and Sundays were rest days, on which he only did his morning run and whatever training the Academy had him do while he was there. Gai had actually physically applauded him looking after himself when he evaluated Hotaru's routine. That was when he'd gifted him the Taijutsu Master outfit.

His run that morning had been particularly worth it, the seething glare the panting Kiba had given him as he casually lapped him had practically made his morning all on its own. It would have been worth foregoing the million ryo for his seal if that was the result. He'd blushed at Hanna's wicked smirk and sultry wave. She'd taken particular delight in flirting with him while she was naked and having her seal applied, making innuendo a plenty in an effort to fluster him that was mildly successful. She'd even gone so far as to give him a hug, smooshing his face into her chest after her seal was done. She wasn't serious of course, but the adults had still laughed at him when he'd finally gone a bit pink following the hug.

It hadn't bothered her at all. Hotaru was aware that the Academy ran a program to do away with dangerous body shyness in the last two years of the program. It had originally run for the whole eight years to completely do away with any reflex to duck and hide oneself if clothing was compromised in the middle of battle, but there were sufficient complaints and reduced enrolments from the civilians that it was reduced to the last two years, when all the chaff had been blown away and only the serious ninja candidates remained.

Getting dressed, he went into the bathroom to brush his teeth after his nap and looked in the mirror. His eyes had retained their scarlet colouring (by design), but unlike the last time he'd looked in the mirror, the pupil was gone.

Hotaru felt another cold, heavy 'notification' - for lack of a better word - in his head, confirming the acquisition of the Byakugan, and the free addition of a specialisation in the Jūken taijutsu style.

Two days ago, when he'd gone to see the Hokage about Naruko, he'd also reported that he believed his bloodline had mutated somehow. He'd mentioned that his eyesight had suddenly improved massively, and his Katon practice - chosen for mention because it was the element used by his father - had suddenly gotten much easier, which had prompted him to utilise a seal that analysed chakra nature. The seal had reported he now had a strong natural affinity for all of the basic elements. Finally he'd said that when he cut himself for a jutsu a few days ago that it had healed incredibly rapidly, more so than his Uzumaki heritage would normally account for.

The hokage had asked him to demonstrate his healing, having him cut himself with a kunai, and then personally run some scans with the mystic palm focusing on his eyes the most. He'd actually complimented Hotaru on how healthy and fit he was, saying that few students in the Academy had such developed muscles.

He then asked him to read various signs in the distance outside his window, and flicked various hand signs in front of him to test his kinetic vision. The old man was fast. He must have been an absolute beast in his youth. He'd had Hotaru channel chakra to his eyes and tested if he could see chakra, which he couldn't.

He'd informed Hotaru that he'd done the right thing by coming to him, then ordered both of his guards and Hotaru himself not to reveal the emergence of a possible new kekkei genkai to anyone at all. Even Hayate.

Hotaru was ordered to report directly to him if there were any changes, and to only do so if the same two guards (Raido and Genma) were on duty. Hotaru was grateful for that, it meant the hokage intended to maintain a wait and see approach before sharing any info around. He just needed another month or two to remove recruitment by Danzo as a threat.

Genma and Raido's presence had been one of the main reasons he'd chosen that specific day. He was as certain of their loyalty to the hat as he could be due to their being two of the three permanently assigned guards to the hokage. Other Jonin that took shifts guarding him were more suspect - there was no way Danzo didn't have moles in the Hokage's staff after all.

The other factor was the fact that Danzo was out of the village right now, travelling to the capital as he did twice annually to maintain his connections in the Daimyo's court and generally schmooze amongst the nobility. He wouldn't be back for two more weeks, which meant he'd only need to stay under the man's radar for a week or so. If he even needed to at that point - it's unlikely someone that careful would order him abducted immediately after all. He'd take the time to scout out the situation and avoid getting caught. By which time Hotaru would make sure it was too late. He'd spent literal years scouting and preparing after all.

Amusingly, none of the reported abilities were in any way new. It was a calculated but necessary risk, he needed to set the stage for this next report. There was no way his changed eyes would go unnoticed in a village with such a hard-on for doujutsu, but had he done the chakra channelling test in front of the Hokage with his eyes as they are now, he'd have given himself away as possessing the byakugan almost immediately. The way the blood vessels bulged when it was activated was a dead give away after all.

Now though, he had established trust with the Hokage, and having already been tested he could simply report that there had been a cosmetic change, but that he'd noticed no change in his vision either with or without chakra. He didn't really feel bad about the deceit, he was ultimately working for the benefit of Konoha after all. It wasn't like he was planning to betray the village like Orochimaru, and unlike Danzo he was working to protect the village as it actually was, not some twisted vision of what it could be.

This small lie would hopefully give him a chance to train away the bulging blood vessels in his study, something he should be capable of doing with the help of his power. It was supposed to be able to train anything possible in the context of this reality after all.

The rest of the weekend passed by quickly; as he'd predicted his new eyes had been noticed, by Ino of all people. It was not that surprising however as her customary greeting was to throw herself at him and hang off of his neck. When she was looking at his eyes from point blank range he'd have found it strange if she hadn't noticed.

Ino was one of Hotaru's fangirls at the Academy, albeit one of the tolerable ones. This was primarily because he got regular breaks from her nonsense as she didn't seem able to decide whether she wanted him, or Sasuke, flipping between simping for whichever was the flavour of the week.

Strangely, on those days that she was on team Sasuke she still butted heads with Sakura. Hotaru wasn't actually sure why, out of all the Sasuke fans in class, Ino considered the pink haired boy to be her greatest rival for Sasuke's affections - while he'd never given any real acknowledgement to his fans, he had on occasion seemed somewhat repulsed to have the other boy hanging off of him. Hotaru was fairly sure that particular crush would remain unrequited.

His best guess for Ino's choice of rivals, was that the 'rivalry' with Sakura - having formerly been her best friend before the pink haired boy broke off their friendship when they both developed a crush on the same person - was just Ino's way of spending time with a friend she badly wanted back.

Hotaru had deflected Ino's inquiries for now by claiming that he was trialling some colour contacts and that he hoped to place seals on them one day. He'd asked her how she thought they looked, causing her to wax poetic on the way they made the red of his eyes stand out, then distracted her by complimenting her new dress.

Shika had, of course, noticed the lie; but he'd not mentioned it aloud due to being smart enough to spot a troublesome topic when it reared its head.

Choji was fully invested in the bag of chips Hotaru had brought along for the movie. Hotaru was one of Choji's favourite friends because he never called the boy fat, recognising the power of his family techniques and knowing that the extra weight was just fuel for the walking siege weapon that was an Akamichi, and because Hotaru was the only person that really understood the proper amount of snacks to bring to an event: one bag of chips to share with everyone else, one just for Choji and an extra bag for the walk to the cinema that Choji would share a small number of - so long as they left the last chip for him.

The Princess Gale movie had been pretty good, better than the second movie in the series, but not quite up to the original. Hotaru always got a kick out of the fact that a princess was secretly playing the role of another fictional princess.

On Sunday Hotaru's body was feeling much better, so he'd made his report to the Hokage first thing in the morning after his run. As he'd hoped would be the case, the old man had accepted the report and told him to keep an eye open for any further changes as he may not be finished developing yet. He'd actually made the pun with that sparkle dads got in their eyes when they knew that they were making a terrible joke. Hotaru had humoured him and given a small chuckle, knowing he'd probably end up making jokes like that someday too.

As was his custom, he'd spent the majority of the rest of the day - after delivering his three furry companions to their new homes and receiving queer looks from the excited children's parents when he told them the animals' names - cooking a number of large batches of food and separating them into individual portions which were then sealed hot off the oven in small, stasis inducing scrolls. He always made more than he'd actually eat in a week, and was building a pretty decent stockpile so that he'd always have fresh, hot, home cooked meals when he eventually got sent on missions away from the village.

His single-use empty meal storage scrolls were actually one of his best sellers, he sold them both to two shinobi equipment stores for eight hundred ryo a piece, and directly to the village for four hundred a piece plus an agreement to supply him with blank scrolls.

The blank scrolls were nowhere near covering the extra four hundred ryo per scroll, but the village getting a hefty discount on seal purchases was part of the cost to maintain the Uzumaki's status as a recognised clan of Konoha, which was definitely worth the money lost. It wasn't like it took all that long to make the seals anyway - they were simple enough that he could use chakra strings to unroll about sixty blank scrolls over the floor of the study and then use the same strings as a conduit to transmit the inkless sealing technique to four scrolls at a time. At a rate of 24,000 ryo for about two and a half minutes worth of work with no supply costs, he wasn't bothered by the lower price for the sale - even after he lost a good chunk of that money in taxes.

Sunday evening was spent working on the design for the new security seal he planned to make for his eventual doujutsu, he wasn't really worried about his own eyes being stolen, but he did plan to have children eventually, and he'd rather minimise the amount of people that would be targeting them if possible. He also intended to offer a version of the completed seal to the Hyuga clan eventually, to replace the caged bird seal, not being a fan of that abuse of his art at all.

He finished the day with a routine of stretching to stay limber, and an hour of meditation.

---

Chapter 4

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Chapter 4

Hotaru was sitting in the centre seat of the wall side row of desks in his class, about halfway back in the classroom, having a quiet conversation with Hinata, who was sitting in the wall seat next to him when Naruko dropped into the aisle set, putting the table at capacity.

"Morning Hotaru-kun, Hinata-chan!" Naruko was always at her brightest on Monday mornings, when she could interact with people who actually tolerated her, but hadn't been worn down by actual classes yet.

"G-Good morning Naruko-chan," Hinata replied, too polite to let her shyness stop her from answering. "Y-You're on time t-today!" she said happily.

"Yeah well, I guess I kinda promised Hotaru that I'd try at the academy if he helped me train." She grumbled half heartedly.

"That's great!" Hinata enthused quietly, happy that the person she looked up to was being helped, and also that she would be doing better in class. Being from a clan, Hinata was well aware of how things could go wrong in the field, and had enough faith in the teachers that she believed that what they were learning must be important.

"You're welcome to join us sometime if you like Hinata-chan." Hotaru said, "Naruko could probably use the variety in sparring partners."

"N-n-n-n-No!, I-I Couldn't impose on, I mean I," she mumbled almost too quietly to hear going as red as Hotaru's hair, before firming up and stating, "T-Thank you for the invitation, b-but I have training with my father after classes." She sounded a little forlorn towards the end.

"Well, the offer's open."

"Hey, hey, what's going on over there!" Naruko piped in, waving over at the gaggle of Hotaru's usual fangirls giggling and fawning over a stunned Kiba, and generally hanging all over him making a nuisance of themselves. Next to him, the other half of the class's female population - plus Sakura - was giving Sasuke the same treatment.

Most of the boys were looking on in bafflement, except for Shikamaru who'd quickly worked out what was going on, and Choji, who was concentrating on stuffing as much food down as possible before the teacher arrived and made him put it away.

"I didn't feel like dealing with them today," Hotaru explained to her, "so I put them all under a genjutsu. They all think Kiba is me."

Hinata giggled and struggled to put on a stern look. "That's mean!" she said quietly, but it was ruined by the fact that she was still struggling not to laugh.

Naruko on the other hand had no such restraint, laughing raucously, a few of the closer boys were now also laughing with enlightened looks on their faces.

Kiba, having excellent hearing and strongly desiring revenge for the greatly increased difficulty of his morning workouts, scowled at him when he overheard the statement Hotaru had made no effort to be discreet about from all the way on the other side of the room. He looked grumpy for a little bit before a rare clever idea came to him.

Grinning smugly over at him, Kiba pulled one of the girls, Yua if Hotaru recalled correctly, into his lap, behaving as if he was suddenly smitten. There was an uproar on that side of the room as the girls howled objections at Yua being chosen over them, drawing the attention of sasuke's fans as well who squealed at the juicy gossip. Yua herself went beet red and melted into him.

Hotaru was a little shocked that Kiba had come up with a pretty decent plan to cause him trouble as revenge. He nodded in acknowledgement to Kiba, willing to let him take the point. Kiba however was not done and decided to take things further, grabbing Yua's behind and leaning in for a kiss.

There were shocked gasps from Sasuke's fangirls, which today included Ino. While the majority of them went quiet, leaning in to watch enraptured, he saw her eyes narrow at how out of character this was before she quickly made a hand sign, performing a genjutsu kai (release).

Then her eyes widened like saucers as she saw Kiba about to steal Yua's lips.

Hotaru sighed, he was surprised Kiba had had the idea at all, and would have let him take the win if he'd just left it there - quick thinking should be encouraged after all. Poor judgement and lack of forethought however should be punished. He was unfortunately not surprised that Kiba had failed to notice the gaping flaw in his plan.

Hotaru ended the genjutsu.

At the last moment, Yua's eyes flew open as she registered the suddenly different feel and smell of the boy under her, too late as Kiba landed a big kiss on her already puckered lips.

Hotaru ignored the sounds of an enraged beating in the background as he turned his attention to the teacher that had just entered. Naruko's laughing had reached the point where she was hanging off him to stay on the bench, struggling to breathe in. He felt a grin steal across his face, reigning in the desire to laugh himself - Kiba's face when he realised that the genjutsu had ended was priceless.

Eventually the teacher got control of the class and started on the maths lesson that was their first lesson of the day. It was significantly higher level than what his past life had learned at the same age due to chakra boosting the mental abilities of the genin hopefuls almost as much as it boosted their physicals. When combined with the memorisation techniques they were taught early on, genin hopefuls could blaze through the materials at such a pace that actually did receive a pretty good equivalent education in maths, history and the sciences to what the other guy would have considered a modern highschool by the time they were thirteen - at least in peacetime. Obviously the main focus was still on the ninja skills however, so the subjects differed, and even many of the maths questions were framed in terms of the speed of thrown kunai and such. He bet chemistry had a lot less focus on explosives in his past life too.

It was actually this mental enhancement that was responsible for the erratic levels of technological development in the elemental nations. Where the technology of the world his past self had lived in was developed by the iterative efforts of countless millions of entrepreneurs the advanced technology here in his world was developed by the scientists working for the hidden villages, scientists that had largely been students of the shinobi academy that didn't make the cut for the final two years of ninja training.

Where as each class would turn out three to four teams of elite genin that were considered to have potential to become powerful jonin (or were important members of a clan) and were put in the care of jonin teachers to fast track them towards promotion; and the remainder would go to the genin corps, where they would be taught by a senior chunin, and were far less likely to advance within a decade (where they became ineligible for a promotion without extraordinary service - a fate that did occasionally befall the elite genin too); the bulk of their current classmates would go on to become citizens of Konoha.

Citizen status was earned by at least making the attempt to become a shinobi, and came with the benefits of knowledge of the use of chakra and eligibility for consideration in jobs with significant security levels. The one downside being, that having been trained in the village's security to some degree as a student and as an employed adult, the ability to leave the village was somewhat more restricted, being only allowed every two to three years when the security was changed after the chunin exams.

It was these chakra using citizens, and the rather small number of ninja scientists, that developed the technology hoarded by the hidden villages and, to a lesser extent, the upper nobility. Their chakra enhanced minds allowed them to make the kind of progress that would take entire teams of civilians and significant industrial support all on their own, the result of which being that the hidden villages enjoyed luxuries like radio headsets, TVs and microwaves (depending on the village of course since none of them shared with each other), while the most advanced technology a civilian outside of the villages had to look forward to was indoor plumbing and the occasional refrigerator.

Ino skipped over to the part of the schoolyard where Horaru, Naruko, Hinata, Choji and Shikamaru were all sitting at a table finishing their lunch; Naruko's cup ramen had been confiscated and replaced with a sealed portion of teriyaki chicken and vegetables over brown rice by Hotaru to her initial displeasure. Hotaru had insisted that she promised to train properly and that eating well was part of training properly. She'd pouted at first, but let up after tasting the meal; after two years of practice doing most of his own cooking Hotaru felt that he was probably good enough to qualify as a sous chef at most restaurants.

A good portion of what would no doubt become the dropouts had already finished, as Ino herself had, because they ate much smaller lunches than what the calorie intake of an actively training ninja student should require. In Ino's case, this was because she was dieting in some absurd bid to alternately gain Sasuke's or his own attention. In the case of the rest of them, it was simply because they probably weren't training enough.

Sasuke himself, though he had been invited to sit with them by both Naruko and Hotaru, was sitting over under the shade of a tree, brooding as he ate. The only one missing was Kiba, who was still hiding from Yua. She rather looked like she'd wanted to murder him still when the morning classes let out. He could see her with the kaguya shingan stalking the hallways on the second floor searching for him. She was two floors off however, Kiba having already made it to the roof and was eating his lunch up there.

His full attention was pulled back to the table when the baffling creature that was Ino draped herself over his back, arms on either side of his neck, apparently having switched the object of her affections again. She planted her face next to his own, cheek to cheek.

"Good morning Hotaru-kun!" she almost sang, her mood soaring high for some reason.

"Troublesome." Shikamaru muttered under his breath and started to eat a tiny bit quicker. Hotaru heard it anyway, his hearing wasn't quite up to the level of an Inuzuka yet, but it had to be getting close.

"That was pretty mean what you did to Yua-chan this morning! Though I gotta admit it was pretty funny." Ino leaned in further to peer over him at his lunch. Hotaru heard her stomach growl so loudly that he could almost feel the sound on his back.

He picked up a piece of chicken and offered it to a blushing Ino's mouth instead of his own.

"Mmmh! So good!" Ino moaned.

"Well, maybe it'll motivate her to train some more so she can detect basic genjutsu. You managed well enough." Hotaru said dryly.

"Oooh, so cold!" Ino slid off his back and onto the seat next to him with a faux shiver, shoving a grumbling Shikamaru along the bench to cuddle into his side. "Don't worry, I'll keep you nice and warm."

Hotaru held his hand out above the table in a one handed seal, a small globe of fire appeared, radiating warmth disproportionate to its size. He let it hang over his cupped hand for a few moments then dissipated it.

"Thanks, but I'll manage."

"So cool!" she squealed. Naruko apparently agreed with her

"So, care to tell me why your stomach is growling? Did your mother not pack you enough to eat?"

She did - he'd watched Ino tip most of it out in the garbage.

"Well, you know how it is," Ino answered with a blush, "I gotta keep my figure and all, so I'm dieting."

Even Choji stopped eating to look at her dumbfounded for that one.

"Ino," Shikamaru piped in lazily as he got up and started to walk away, probably to escape the splash zone for whatever line he was about to drop, "don't take this the wrong way, but you're ten, you don't have a figure."

Naruko snorted with laughter, almost spitting out her food. Hotaru, who'd just taken a sip of water, was now dealing with said water running from his burning nose as he'd done the same. Fortunately he could pull the extra water away with suiton manipulation, so the sensation was brief.

Ino screeched with outrage and made to lunge after him, but Hotaru caught her around the waist with one arm, pulling her back down next to him. Ino noticed that she was now sitting with his arm around her and misinterpreted the situation entirely, going red and quieting down.

"Ino-chan, we've talked about this before, the teachers have talked about it, I bet even your parents have talked about it with you." Hotaru started,

"Mine too." Choji chipped in.

"You shouldn't be dieting as a kunoichi, if you're training properly you won't even need to."

"I just want to look good for you and Sasuke-kun!" she said in a small but stubborn voice.

"Ino-chan, you look great already!"

"I think so too Ino-chan." Hinata raised her hand shyly, trying to help.

"Why do you think you need to diet again?"

"I… I… I gained two kilos again!" Ino wailed in despair. Hotaru fought the urge to face palm.

"Ino-chan, you've gotten taller. The extra weight is bone and muscle. You're ten, you're still growing. You shouldn't even be on a scale outside of medical checkups."

There was an embarrassed silence from a wide-eyed Ino. Hotaru slid the remains of his lunch over to her and held out the chopsticks demandingly. Once she started to eat, he pulled out Naruko's cup-ramen, ripped off the lid, and made an unnecessary hand sign to fill it with boiling water. He ignored Naruko's gasp and claims of unfairness. He'd made her an entire home cooked meal, she didn't need the ramen too.

"I'll tell you three things Ino-chan: Firstly, I think that being way too skinny is almost as unattractive as being obese." Ino breathed in sharply and looked down at her body. "You're not close to that bad yet, don't worry. Second, you're in one of your most important growing periods right now, if you don't eat properly you might not ever reach your full height… Your breasts might even end up smaller than they should be. That goes for you too, Naruko."

Twin worried gasps sounded. Hotaru waited till he had her attention again.

"Thirdly, No amount of good looks is going to get Sasuke's attention." He had her laser focus now, and she looked like she was about to object so he continued. "The only thing that will get through to him is strength, deep down he's terrified that his brother will come back and kill anyone he gets close to."

Even Hinata gasped at that one. Choji looked sombre.

SLAM! Naruko was standing, leaning forward with one hand on the table where she'd smacked it down, the other on her hip. "That's no good at all! We'll all just have to get so strong that his brother could never beat us! Then we'll drag him out and make him be our friend!" she shouted with fire in her eyes. He could see the same fire burning in Ino and Choji as they nodded in agreement.

"Heh, Never change Naruko-chan."

"So, Ino-chan, I hope you've decided not to weigh yourself anymore?"

"I… well.." she hedged

"Hotaru!" A loud snarl sounded in the distance.

'Ah joy, Kiba's coming.' The thought brought with it a wave of inspiration as it sparked a recent memory.

"Alright, I'll make you a deal. Every time you come and eat with us, and finish the full sized meal your mum gave you, I'll give you a kiss."

Ino's eyes went wide, her face the deepest red he'd ever seen on her. "Really?!"

"Really." It wasn't a big deal to Hotaru, it was just touching lips together, and it was supposed to be fun based on his past life's memories on the topic.

"Deal!" Ino exclaimed, sticking her hand out for a pinky promise in an eerily similar repeat of Naruko's promise on Friday. Hotaru shook pinkies on it. "No take backs!" She got up and ran off, probably to gloat to the other fangirls.

"U-Um…" Hinata, almost as red as Ino, was trying to speak up.

Naruko beat her to it. "No fair!" She exclaimed, "You didn't make a deal like that to make me eat properly!"

Hotaru spun on his seat to catch the lunging Kiba, one hand on his collar, his foot planted in his centre of gravity, and rolled back towards the table, kicking out and launching Kiba clear over the table and into the field by adding to his own dimension. Kiba flipped twice in mid air and landed in his clan's Shikyaku no Jutsu (All-Fours Jutsu).

Hotaru turned back to Naruko.

"Why? Did you want me to kiss you?" She sputtered a bit, but denied wanting anything like that vehemently. "Then what's the problem? I even personally made you a home cooked meal."

Naruko looked down vulnerably. "Thank you." She said softly, voice filled with emotion. It was the first home cooked meal anyone had ever made specifically for her.

She looked up as Hotaru ruffled her hair on the way past. "You're welcome. You kept your promise this morning." He could see how much of a struggle it was for her too. She was missing too much foundation to follow the lesson so it had been very boring for her.

Hotaru whipped out a chakra string and yanked one of the dozens of fist sized dark balls from the dodgeball court. It soared across the yard smacked into his hand with a meaty thwack. He immediately whipped it toward Kiba's charging form where it beaned him on the head.

He took off towards the other kids on the court, ducking Kiba's return throw without looking, "Let's go flea breath!" he called over his shoulder as he joined the red team.

"You're on, you bastard tomato!" Kiba shouted, running across to join the yellow team.

Soon the balls were flying back and forth in a heated game of Ninja Dodgeball. Unlike regular civilian dodgeball, the balls were much more numerous and only the size of a fist. They were also black, roughly the colour and size of a kunai. The idea there was that children would not only increase their throwing speed and accuracy, but that they would develop a reflex for dodging small, fast moving black objects from an early age. To avoid developing bad habits blocking with another ball and catching were both forbidden, but intercepting a ball with a throw of your own was allowed; the logic being that blocking and catching kunai both required the kunai to be in specific orientation whilst intercepting only required accuracy.

The yard was full of "games" like these that ninja children grew up with. Training exercises that might be mistaken as innocent fun to the casual observer; like an incredibly complex version of hopscotch with numerous marked patterns to train the coordination of the feet or games similar to cat's cradle that trained finger dexterity to help with hand signs. They were also encouraged to play mental games like memory or shiratori to train mental flexibility. All done to increase the likelihood of children making it to adulthood.

The ninja village system had improved things a lot - especially in Konoha (Danzo's shenanigans aside) - but there was still a good long way to go. It certainly didn't help that training to use chakra yielded the greatest benefits when started in small children; in peace time it produced incredibly well trained ninja, as missions were carefully selected to keep the young and unready away from real danger until they were fully trained, but it also tended to make the children a tempting potential source of soldiers to tap into when wars rolled around. Something that happened sadly frequently due to the general attitude of mistrust ninja practices engendered and the endlessly perpetuated cycle of revenge.

Hotaru spent the remaining half of lunch time enjoying himself by dodging balls by the slimmest margins he was able to and only tagging people on the left elbow. Except for Kiba. In terms of physical ability he was only behind Sasuke and Hotaru himself in their entire year. Kiba actually made a fun target as he was good enough to dodge properly, so Hotaru focused most of his attention on hitting him with body shots - he didn't think Kiba could really afford the lost brain cells of headshots - until the teacher came out for afternoon classes, starting with taijutsu.

"Hey! Hey, HEY! C'mon let me know the big idea already!" Naruko was bouncing around with excitement and tugging on his sleeve.

They had just reached one of the training grounds allocated for use by Academy students, and Naruko had been bugging him the entire way there.

"Alright, alright. So, you recall that I told you there would be a whole bunch of boring drills before I taught you any of the jutsu I know?"

She nodded with a sour look on her face.

"Well this jutsu will be the one exception." He smirked when her face lit up. "I had the idea when I was telling you how much chakra you had. This one jutsu will be your most powerful asset going forward. It's the jutsu that will make it possible for you to gain the strength you need to become Hokage! The jutsu which in your hands will allow you to surpass the potential of even the Uchiha with their Sharingan kekkei genkai, and only someone with your stupidly huge chakra levels could hope to use it to the awesome full potential I've envisioned!" Hotaru continued to hype it up, Naruko almost vibrating with excitement by now. "It's a jutsu created by the Second Hokage himself, that was gifted to my clan when Mito-sama Married the First. I've seen jonin around the village using it, so it isn't a hidden jutsu and I'm allowed to teach it to you.."

"Yeah? Yeah? What is it? C'mon!"

"It's called… The Kage bunshin jutsu!"

So saying he made a special cross hand seal (that he was long past the point of no longer needing) and a clone puffed into existence."

Aah, there was the expectation crash. He laughed internally as her dreams of some mountain crushing jutsu crumbled around her and she began to shout in frustration, smacking at him for getting her so worked up.

"Naruko!" The clone smacked her head to get her attention then popped and Hotaru met her eyes, "I promise that this jutsu is everything I said it is, but it's also a forbidden jutsu twice over, so if you want to learn it you'll have to listen carefully to how it works and agree to the rules for using it."

"Right…" Naruko practically oozed sceptical from every pore, but she sat down cross legged and listened intently anyway.

"This jutsu is forbidden for two reasons, both of them are different ways that it's dangerous to the user. The first is pretty simple and won't be much of a problem for you, but it is something you need to keep in mind. The jutsu splits your chakra evenly between the number of bodies, including yourself. This means that if you make two clones they'll both have one third of your chakra and you'll have the other third. Understand?"

"Hmmm… yeah, I think so." She scrunched her face up.

"Right. You have enough chakra that this won't be much of a problem, BUT! Rule One will be you are not allowed to teach the jutsu to anyone else without permission from either me, the Hokage or another jonin who can sense chakra levels. You have enough chakra to use this jutsu, and I do too, but not a single other student at the academy has enough; if any of them tried to make a shadow clone right now the jutsu would leave them with too little chakra to live on and send them into chakra exhaustion - maybe even kill them. So, Rule One: No teaching anyone. Understood?"

Naruko nodded, eyes wide.

"Good, that brings us to the second danger, but to understand it, I'll have to tell you a little about the jutsu. The shadow clone is a solid clone jutsu made from pure chakra that can move and think for itself, it can even cast its own jutsu. But what makes it really special, is that when it's dispelled most of the chakra goes back to the user, and when it does, it brings back the clone's memories. This means that you can send clones into dangerous places to scout things like enemy movements and when they're done they can just pop and you'll get the memories. Or you can send it in to fight a strong enemy and learn about his jutsu. Get it?"

"Maybe? I think…. Hmm… not really."

Hotaru thought for a bit, then made another clone and walked away to the other side of the clearing with his back turned, then waited a moment and walked back to where Naruko was standing on her own.

"You told the clone that the last flavour of ramen you ate at Ichiraku was tonkotsu. And because the clone learned it, I learned it when it popped, see?"

"Oooh." Seeing that she understood he kept going.

"The danger here is, that if too many clones pop at once, depending what they were doing and for how long, the rush of info might fry your brain!" He continued explaining to the pale girl that clearly understood the danger. "Now, how many it's safe to use and how long will depend on what you're doing, but we'll work on that later. The important thing is that you know it can happen and remember this, Rule Two: Unless you just made the clones for a fight, never, ever dismiss all of your clones at the same time. Agreed?"

"Ok, yeah sure. But I get that this jutsu is pretty cool for spying and stuff, and I guess having extra me's would be awesome in a fight, but it doesn't seem as great as you were saying." Naruko said with crossed arms

"Ah, but that's just because you don't know it yet. The secret to true power."

"The secret to true power?!" Her eyes sparkled. "What is it? What's the secret?"

"The secret to true power is… Mastery. To not just be able to use a jutsu, but to be able to bring out the jutsu's full potential. A great taijutsu master once said, I'm not afraid of a person who's learned ten thousand punches. I am afraid of the person who learned one punch, and then practised it ten thousand times."

To give her some time to process, he unsealed a water bottle and took a sip before resealing it and continuing. "All of the legendary shinobi you've ever heard of had at least one thing that they were better at than anyone else. The Second Hokage was so good at suiton jutsu that he could pull water from thin air and make jutsu without any hand signs. Shisui the Teleporter was so good at the shunshin jutsu that he looked as if he was teleporting. Senju Tsunade of the Sanin has Chakra control so perfect she can use it to make herself super strong and smash a whole building in one hit and she's the best medic-nin who ever lived. The Third Raikage mastered the lightning armour jutsu to the point that they called his skin impenetrable and The second Tsuchikage was so good at stealth jutsu that they called him the non-person because it was like he wasn't there at all."

"That makes so much sense! Yeah, true mastery…" Naruko was bouncing again by the end of his explanation but it slowly petered off and she put on a puzzled look. "But… How will that clone jutsu make me a super awesome hokage?"

"Because you have enough chakra to make a whole lot of clones, and remember, you learn what the clone learns, that means that you can do exercises and taijutsu drills that need your real body, while your clones each practice things like chakra control, jutsu or kata forms, and you can study at the same time! You could even have lots of clones practising the same thing and learn it super fast. You don't need to be the person who practises one punch ten thousand times, you can be the person who practises a thousand punches ten thousand times… With the kage bunshin you can become a ninja with a whole bunch of legendary skills, greater than all of them. IF that is, you are willing to put in the hard work."

As his words sank into Naruko's mind she slowly worked up to the biggest and most genuine smile he'd ever seen from her until, all at once, she burst to her feet and began dancing around shouting that she was going to be awesome. Idly, Hotaru again noted the disappearance of the Third's observation jutsu, but put it out of his mind. Everything he'd said to her was, if not common knowledge, at least available in the genin section of the library, and he could already tell that teaching Naruko the technique would make for a long afternoon.

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Chapter 4.5 - Hokage Interlude

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Hokage Interlude

Sarutobi Hiruzen puffed on his pipe as he watched Naruko pestering young Hotaru to teach her, before even reaching the training area, through his crystal ball with great amusement. Patience had never been the strong suit of his surrogate granddaughter.

Looking over his shoulder were Genma and Raido, the latter of which had actually swapped a shift tomorrow with Iwashi in order to satisfy his curiosity about Hotaru's big training idea. He was more than a little curious himself. One did not develop study habits that earned a moniker like "The Professor" without a generous helping of natural curiosity after all.

It wasn't like he needed to master every available jutsu in the village archive; after all, a repertoire of a good dozen highly mastered jutsu and the ability to use a few common utility jutsu was a respectable toolkit for any shinobi, even at the elite jonin level.

His curiosity turned to mild concern as the boy began aggrandising the jutsu he was about to teach to Naruko. 'A jutsu that can surpass the sharingan?' Hiruzen raised a brow as he tried to think of what it might be.

Hotaru's voice echoed from the crystal ball. Hiruzen was quite glad he'd gone to the trouble of adding sound to the jutsu over the weekend, it was much less troublesome than lip reading. "It's a jutsu created by the Second Hokage himself, that was gifted to my clan when Mito-sama Married the First."

'Well then, that narrows it down, though not as much as I'd like, Sensei was quite the prolific jutsu creator… It wouldn't be the edo-tensei, whilst the ability to summon trainers for them would indeed be helpful, only myself and Orochimaru have ever had access to that particular jutsu… ' The next that sprang to mind was the hiraishin, but despite being a fuinjutsu technique, and one that a young Tobirama had worked on with the help of Uzumaki Mito, he didn't believe a completed copy was ever given to the Uzumaki clan, and he could see no way it would be useful for training besides.

Then Hotaru finished his speech and his mind whirled. 'A jutsu created by Sensei that takes a lot of chakra, and that he'd seen other jonin using? One that could be used for training? The Kage Bunshin?!' Hiruzen's mind raced ahead, seeing where Hotaru was taking this immediately, and processing the implications.

He ignored his guards' disbelieving exclamations as he was vindicated by Hotaru naming and performing the jutsu, his mind a thousand clicks away thinking of all the ways someone with Naruko's immense reserves could leverage the jutsu to their advantage, and slowly growing concerned as his mind filled with ways it could go wrong.

"That's a lot of hype for just the kage bunshin jutsu." Genma complained, sounding a little disappointed.

"Hmm. No, let's keep listening. If young Hotaru-kun is going where I think he is with this, then he hasn't overstated the matter at all… and it may very well be Naruko chan sitting in this seat a decade from now."

Both looked at him incredulously, "With all due respect Hokage-sama, most of the jonin in Konoha know that jutsu…" he trailed off as he listened to Hotaru explaining the significance of the jutsu to Naruko. His senbon plinked off of the Hokage's shoulder as his jaw dropped.

"It's not that surprising that you'd never thought of the kage bunshin in that context, Genma-kun, you've never had the chakra reserves of a jinchuriki to throw at it." Hiruzen explained, even as his worries were eased by the rules that Hotaru was laying down for Naruko. Quite responsible for his age, he mused.

"Holy shit!" Raido spoke what they were all feeling.

Hiruzen cut off the technique. There was no need to see the full training session. The guards were muttering to each other in the background. Hiruzen was pondering what Hotaru had said; "I'm not afraid of a person who's learned ten thousand punches. I am afraid of the person who learned one punch, and then practised it ten thousand times." He turned over the implications of it in his head and made connections to his past observations of the boy. In particular the ease with which he made use of small elemental ninjutsu, that went far beyond what just having gained an affinity for them would explain. And as a clan member he had access to an isolated room to train in… He'd said he'd just had the idea, but if the idea he'd had was Naruko making use of the technique…

"I believe," he mused out loud to his guards, smiling amusedly, "that we have just discovered the means by which young Hotaru achieved such dominance over the academy rankings."

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Chapter 5

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Chapter 5

Hotaru looked down on the panting form of Naruko lying spread eagled in the fading light. He'd given her one last attempt to bring the five hand seals that the jutsu required down to just one - the level of mastery he'd insisted on before she be allowed to actually use the jutsu around anyone else - and she hadn't disappointed him. With her dwindling reserves she'd pulled off five clones with just the crossed hand seal, which had danced around congratulating themselves with high fives and then dispelled.

She was hardly in danger of chakra exhaustion even now, and her reserves were refilling so quickly that Hotaru could practically see them changing through the kagura shingan.

He'd actually taught her the multi shadow clone variant first, despite what he'd called the jutsu while the Third was watching, then told her that unless she was making more than ten clones at a time, it was easier to change the second last sign from monkey to boar.

Naruko believed she'd only learned the B rank standard equivalent and how to customise it. This was because it was far harder for her to mess up and give away the game if she just didn't know. The insistence on single seal mastery was both so that nobody in the upper ranks would realise she was using the secret forbidden version, instead attributing the number of clones to the sheer volume of her chakra, and to prevent any of their classmates from copying the jutsu when she inevitably used it in a ninjutsu allowed spar.

Keeping her in the dark about the variations true name also offered him deniability if someone did find out, he could simply claim to have adjusted the jutsu himself to make it easier to produce multiple clones at once. Still, it wasn't likely either way since he'd also placed a restriction on the number of clones she could make at one time outside their training before graduation.

He'd restricted her to just three clones in a fight, not to be mean or to cover up the numbers she could make, but simply to avoid bad habits from forming. Her male alternate had regularly made hundreds of clones and just thrown them uselessly into a blender, simultaneously wasting a ton of chakra and looking like an incompetent idiot. With three clones she would be forced to use them tactically, simultaneously training tactics she could employ with her real squad after graduation. It would bring her that much closer to earning her chunin vest before she even earned the headband.

Hotaru was a huge fan of meeting multiple objectives with a single action.

"Congratulations Naruko, your first B rank ninjutsu," Naruko lifted a tired arm and gave a thumbs up, beaming a huge smile at him, "and all in one day. I knew you could do it."

Grabbing her wrist he hauled her to her feet, then spun under her outstretched arm, pulling her into a piggyback and standing. Instinctively her legs came up around his waist to support herself. "H-Hey, what're you doing!?" she shouted in embarrassment.

Hotaru winced, "Don't shout in my ear." He scolded, getting back a sheepish apology even as he shifted his hands down to support her legs and began walking towards his house.

"Where are we going?" Naruko asked after a few minutes, seeing that they weren't heading towards her place.

"We're going back to my house so that I can make sure you eat a proper meal instead of filling up on ramen."

This, of course, ignited an argument that lasted for most of the way home, culminating in Naruko jumping down off his back a block from his house so she could run around in front of him, walking backwards and gesticulating with her arms to emphasise the glorious nature of Ramen.

"And that's not even taking into account the subtle variations tare brings to a good broth!" She continued her current point.

'I didn't even know she knew the word subtle.' He thought to himself jovially as he stopped in front of his house, waving to her to stop moving backwards.

"We're here Naruko." he cut her off before she could get started waxing poetic on the different ways the boiled egg could be marinated or something.

He stepped up to the door, which unlocked automatically as he touched the knob, opening it wide for her he gestured inside. "After you."

Naruko hesitated at the threshold nervously, looking at him again as if asking for permission before entering, upon getting a smile she stepped in, jumping slightly at the sound of the door closing. Hotaru wondered if this was the first time a classmate had invited her back to their home. He thought back over the time he'd known her and realised with a little bit of shame that he couldn't think of any. He'd been to her apartment a few times - his mum had even come with him and showed Naruko how to do some of her chores - but he couldn't remember ever bringing her back here.

He'd made an effort over the years to ensure the adults' attempts to isolate her from her peer group were mostly unsuccessful, usually by just dragging her into activities he'd participated in, and they'd hung out with various other children after classes let out; but he didn't remember her ever going home with anyone else either. It had hurt his own popularity a little bit, before the parents had given up trying to get their kids to ignore him too.

The civilian parents couldn't really afford to be seen bullying a clan heir with two powerful jonin parents for a start, even if his clan had consisted of just the three of them at the time. For seconds, it hadn't been all that effective anyway. The boys had shied away from him for a while on their parent's instructions, but for the girls, he was pretty enough and skilled enough that being told not to go near him had had the opposite effect. He was pretty sure it was one of the main reasons he had fans at all. The boys had been easy enough to win back too, by showing off a small fire jutsu. It was only one meant to light campfires, and didn't even need any real level of elemental training, but knowing it so far ahead of the curriculum had firmly re-established him as 'cool' in their eyes. Even if the parents had mostly been unsuccessful at isolating her at the academy though, there was no way they'd let her in their homes.

For the clan kids, their parents hadn't really had too much of an issue with Naruko to begin with. They did however tend to avoid her themselves as she brought up painful memories, so it wouldn't be strange if none of their children had invited her home with them.

He led her into the living area and sat her down on a pillow next to his low table, "Water or apple juice?"

"Hmmmm… apple juice thanks!" Naruko decided, her head swivelling around every which way to take in the room.

Returning a few moments later with two classes of apple juice and a couple of scrolls tucked under his arm he set them down on the table and then flicked open the scrolls releasing two hot meals.

"I hope you enjoyed your easy day of training?" He said, placing one bowl in front of her.

"Easy!" Naruko exclaimed incredulously, "That jutsu was super hard 'ttebayo!"

Hotaru smirked at her evilly, "Tomorrow will be thirty times harder. Maybe more depending on how many clones you make." Naruko gulped. "Now eat your dinner, and don't bother bringing cup ramen to school anymore. From now on your ramen will be restricted to rest days, and real ramen only. You can either learn to make it yourself, or just go to Ichiraku."

Naruko made heated complaints about the restricting of ramen from her diet, but Hotaru just chopped her head gently and reminded her of her promise to train properly.

"I don't know how to cook," she finally admitted in a small, embarrassed voice.

Hotaru smiled at her. "Not a problem, I'll provide your food this week, and on Sunday you can come here and I'll give you cooking lessons while I do next week's cooking."

Naruko fiddled with the food on her plate pushing around a piece of carrot with her chopsticks. "Why?" she asked with a tiny voice. "Why are you helping me so much?"

Hotaru finished chewing, and swallowed before answering. "Because you deserve to be helped. And you're worth the effort. And you're one of my most precious friends." He shifted uncomfortably. "I realised just now that I'd never even invited you over before, and I should have. It shouldn't be weird that I want to help you; it's weird that nobody else has until now."

Tactfully, he ignored her sobbing and the mumbled complaints about it being dusty in here. When she'd settled down he said, "The bathroom is down the hall on the left, if you want to wash the dust from your eyes. Just add a little chakra to the tap and it'll make warm water."

"Thanks." Naruko gratefully stood and wandered down the hall.

Hotaru began to clear up the plates before stopping when he heard a rushing noise and a crash, followed by a startled squawk and a loud bang. With blazing speed, he focused the kagura shingan on the bathroom, and then broke down in helpless laughter.

He pulled it together after thirty seconds or so and went in to look at the scene with his own eyes. Naruko looked up at him guiltily from where she'd fallen on her backside in shock, completely soaked, and looking like a half drowned kitten with those whisker marks; his sink against the opposite wall told a story of what had happened.

Judging from the remains, Naruko had added chakra with her usual total lack of control. As usual it was a crapshoot whether she would get close to the amount she intended, undershoot so much that nothing would happen, or use so much chakra that it would be visible to the naked eye even without a doujutsu. Clearly this time it had been the latter.

From the looks of it, she had added so much chakra that the resulting stream of water had shot from the faucet like a water cutter, first splashing water everywhere, including all over her, then crashing through the sink and repeating the process with the floor. Finally, his faucet, not being rated for that kind of pressure, had burst open with a bang.

"I-I'm sorry!" Naruko stuttered desperately, probably afraid she'd lost her welcome, "I didn't mean to! I just added some chakra like you said and then the water! and the sink! And…" She flinched back as he reached toward her head. But he just flicked her nose gently and smiled, chuckling once again at the stunned, and cross-eyed look she was now sporting as she tried reflexively to look at her nose.

"Don't worry, it's my fault, I guess I should have added a flow rate limiter to the seal. No harm done." So saying, he made a few hand signs just for show (although they were the correct signs), and gathered the water in the room (including the water on Naruko) into a ball, opened the window, and then launched the ball outside gently to land on the grass. Hotaru quickly scanned the village with the kagura shingan, checking for anyone with an active byakugan. According to Hinata her father could see nearly twelve kilometres, just a bit less than his mother's kagura shingan jutsu was capable of, and more than close enough to see Hotaru from the Hyūga compound.

Seeing nobody with and active doujutsu on this side of the village, he put a subtle genjutsu over Naruko to focus her attention on the sink bowl itself to the exclusion of the other damage, while using three more quick jutsu set the sink and floor to rights - a mokuton (wood release) jutsu righted the floor, while a dōton (earth release) to regather the pieces of the ceramic sink and then reform the gathered earth back into shape, and a kōton (steel release) to reshape the faucet.

The faucet took several hand signs and a few seconds of concentration longer than the other repairs, as he'd only worked out the correct composition and visualisation for moulding kōton chakra relatively recently, and he still hadn't managed to practise it enough to make the transformation instinctual.

Elemental combination was significantly more complicated than just 'mix these two natures together'. It was even possible for a mix of the same two basic natures to produce more than one advanced nature depending on how it was moulded, something he'd discovered by accident when one of his clones met its ignoble end at the hands of an unexpected burst of bakuton chakra (explosion release) chakra while attempting to combine his best guess at steel's composition, earth and lightning.

"So cool!" Naruko breathed in wonder as she watched the fragments of the bowl basically liquify and flow together to form an undamaged basin. With the level of refinement that Hotaru's dōton manipulation possessed it was even possible to shift the material of the glazing back to the surface of the basin and fuse them together, although the particulate didn't retain its orientation so the pigment was facing wherever it landed leaving his previously pale blue basin a speckled blue white.

"If you work hard on all of the exercises I give you, you should be able to do that too by the time you graduate." He promised her matter of factly, as he reapplied the seals to the inside of the faucet. "There, give it another try, I've fixed it so it won't happen again."

Getting to her feet she approached the basin again. Touching the tap hesitantly, she moulded chakra, once again over shooting by a wide margin, although not by enough to reproduce the results of her previous attempt. This time however, instead of splashing all over her, the excess chakra was vented out the side in a plume of shimmering blue and a much more reasonable stream of water poured into the bowl, getting a big grin out of the girl.

"Wash up your face and come back out," Hotaru said, seeing a perfect excuse to offer her something that should probably be an Uzumaki clan secret. Fortunately he was aware that she really was an Uzumaki, so he had no compunctions with giving it to her.

When she came back to sit at the table to find him sipping his second glass of juice, he started speaking. "So your chakra control is even worse than I thought," he started earning a pout, "so to make sure I'll have time for my own training, I've decided to let you use one of the secret Uzumaki clan seals. It's a hidden jutsu though, so if I trust you with it, you have to promise me to keep it a secret."

"You can trust me! I can totally keep a secret 'ttebayo!" She shouted earnestly.

"Come with me then," he led her to his study.

"Hey, why do you have an empty room?"

"It's a special room that clans can have that stops people looking inside with jutsu. It's for clan secrets. All of the clans have one, except for the Inuzuka, who don't seem to have bothered."

He slapped his hand on the floor, a large sealing array spreading out forming an overall diamond shaped spiral.

"The specialty of the Uzumaki clan is fūinjutsu." He explained to her, drawing her rapt attention from the diagram. "Fūinjutsu is the most powerful and versatile of the ninja arts, but also the most difficult. The Fourth Hokage won the third great ninja war with a fūinjutsu assisted ninjutsu, and later he even defeated the Kyuubi by using an Uzumaki clan fūinjutsu that he learned from his wife to summon the shinigami."

"Whoa!" Mentioning the Hokage's was always guaranteed to get her interest.

"There are three separate disciplines that are all commonly called Fūinjutsu. Sealing things away - for which a good example is a storage scroll; Written technique formulas that perform jutsu when you activate them or keep a jutsu going over a long period of time, and are correctly called jutsu shiki, but everyone calls them fūinjutsu anyway - like my tap, or an explosive tag; and barrier seals. that place walls around things to either prevent people passing or raise an alarm when they do. Are you following so far?"

Naruko's face screwed up in concentration. After about a minute, she gave an affirmative.

"Now I'm going to give you two seals that will go on your body," Hotaru took his shirt off, causing her to go red. He chose to ignore that and instead channelled chakra to two points on his body, one over his heart, the other over his diaphragm. Touching the small dumbell over a spiral that appeared on his heart, he said, "This is the first seal. You're allowed to tell people about this one. Do you remember the way Kiba was having trouble in taijutsu today?"

"Hey yeah! That was funny. It was weird though, I thought he must have been feeling bad because he drank some old milk or something." She giggled.

"Well, that was because his mum bought a bunch of these seals on friday and had me put one on Kiba. These seals put resistance on your muscles when you move, so it's like you're always carrying around something heavy. If you train while you're wearing them, you get super strong and fast when you take them off for a real fight."

"That's awesome!" She cheered, "I'm gonna be amazing, just you wait and see!" Her face fell into a frown, "Wait, does that mean Kiba was carrying something heavy when I beat him today! And you! Have you been beating us all this time with that on!"

"Yeah, but imagine the look on Sasuke's face when he finds out."

Naruko got a far away look on her face and broke into giggles. Hotaru let her go for a bit, but eventually grew impatient and snapped his fingers near her face.

"Anyway, the second seal is the secret one. See just like you, the Uzumaki clan has lots of chakra, although not quite as much as you normally." 'Understatement of the century.' "So a long time ago one of the Uzumaki made this seal here," this time he pointed to the unadorned spiral on his diaphragm.

"This one is going to be a bit complicated since I know you weren't paying attention when Katou sensei explained the chakra network. That's one of the things I'll be teaching you in our training starting tomorrow, so for now I'll just say that this seal basically gives you a second chakra network. It'll trick your real coils into thinking they're twice as full as they really are so you don't produce too much chakra and fill them back to full, while half your chakra is really in the second network. That relieves some of the chakra pressure when you're moulding chakra for jutsu, so it's easier to control."

"Hmm.. I don't think I really get it, but it'll make my chakra control better right?"

"It'll make it easier for you to learn control, but yes." He wouldn't be telling her any time soon, but since the seal essentially provided a secondary path for chakra to run through, it would also render the Hyūga main branch's Hakke Shō (Eight Trigrams Palm) which focused on tenketsu strikes effectively useless. The standard jūken would still work however, as it struck at the chakra network on a broad scale, pushing it around which in turn damaged the actual fleshy internals of a person.

That wasn't even the end of the seal's utility, once proper chakra control had been achieved and some underlying fūinjutsu learned, the seal could be re-tuned at will with various effects. By allowing the coils to fill to their maximum the users total capacity essentially increased by half, conversely by turning the seal's ability to fool the chakra network into thinking itself fuller than it really was up higher, the user could pretend to have much smaller reserves than they really did to any sensors in the area, all while keeping half of their reserves available in the sealed space which made up the faux chakra network.

This could be taken even further if the false network was connected to one of Hotaru's energy vessels, allowing the user to empty their reserves into the sphere and dial the seal all the way up until they appeared to have no more chakra than a civilian. Hotaru decided to keep this information to himself until it became relevant since Naruko was pretty clearly tapped out for the day.

"Alright! Let's do this! What do I gotta do?"

Hotaru stepped out of the sealing area and pointed to a particular spot on the seal. "Take all of your clothes off, and stand right there with your arms out and your feet at shoulder width, facing me."

Hotaru's easy experience with the Inuzuka however had not prepared him for Naruko's reaction, having not come from a highly irreverent and close knit clan, nor having gone through the body normalisation routines of the final years of the Academy.

Naruko blushed red hot, shying away dramatically, hugging herself with her body half turned and one knee raised defensively. "Pervert!" She yelled. "All this time you just wanted to see me naked! Gramps told me all about guys like you! Die! Idiot! Baldy!"

Hotaru sighed. That should have been expected. He shrugged and pulled off his shirt and flipped through some hand signs to unlock the encryption for his own chakra network seal, placed on him by his mother as a small child.

Intricate sealing marks spread densely across his body, right over the chakra pathways. At each tenketsu (chakra point) was a small circular seal with a tiny spiral contained within. Whilst the kagura shingan could not directly view a tenketsu like a byakugan could, it could with sufficient focus be used to pinpoint their location anyway by locating the miniscule plumes of chakra which bubbled more readily from the unrestricted egress points they provided.

When Uzumaki Honoka had placed the chakra network seal on Hotaru, she had needed to meditate to concentrate her mind's eye sufficiently to locate them, and then carefully map out all 361 points with ink while he stood as still as possible for hours. In contrast, Naruko would need to stand in place for only a few minutes, as Hotaru's chakra sense was refined enough to sense them trivially - provided there were no clothes in the way diffusing the plumes. A single poke to each point would take care of the tenketsu seals, and then the chakra pathways could be added in the same manner as the resistance seal.

"Here, look at mine," he said, even as she covered her eyes in mortification, which did nothing to sell the emotions she was going for due to the giant gaping gap between her fingers.

Hotaru pointed at various points on his chest. "These little seals with the spiral have to go on your chakra points and then the complex line shaped writing connects the dots."

She got in close curiously, he could see her eyes tracing a line of seals.

"My mum did mine when I was small, it took hours because she wasn't as good at sensing as I am. She had to sit and meditate to find each one. You're lucky that I'll only need a few seconds each - you have to stay still the whole time so it's super boring."

Straightening up she squinted at him, but he could see the tension leaving her shoulders. "Well, I guess you're legit… But I'll be watching you! Any funny business and I'll kick your ass!"

Hotaru ruffled her hair, then flipped through the hand seals to re-encrypt his own seal. "Don't worry, I just have to give a little poke to each point, then run my finger along to connect the dots. No funny business. You can trust me, promise." he held up his pinky for her.

Instead of taking it Naruko started to undress, looking down at her zipper as it caught, cheeks a little rosy.

"You don't need to do that, I trust you. Idiot." she mumbled halfway under her breath.

When she was done, she kicked her clothes aside and stood half outside of the gap in the array that he'd pointed to and facing the wrong angle slightly.

"Let's do this," she said, face set stubbornly, still pink in the cheeks but refusing to show weakness while she was vulnerable. "I'm gonna be the best Hokage ever! If this is what it takes then it's nothing!"

"A bit to the left, inside the blank space, and you need to face straight towards me to line the seal on the floor up."

She looked down, then shuffled a little to correct herself.

"Don't be too bothered about being nude, we'll be seeing each other quite a bit next year, and all of our classmates too."

"What! What do you mean!"

"Hold still!" he scolded. Naruko complied. He'd already placed seals on a dozen chakra points on her arm in the few seconds since he started.

"Ninja clothes get damaged all the time during fights. They don't want you to freeze up, or try to cover yourself on a reflex and make an opening for an enemy to kill you with, so in the last few years they get us used to being seen naked and to seeing others, you know, shared showers and change rooms, things like that, I think a couple of special lessons. Niita sensei told us that last year, but I think you'd been sent out of class for putting that weird sticky putty on Haruka's chair."

Naruko giggled slightly, she'd liked that stuff. "Oh, that makes sense I guess."

Hotaru had by now covered the tenketsu of her entire back in seals. He poked the first tenketsu on her butt, causing her to jump with a yelp and the seal ended up in the wrong spot.

"You need to stay still Naruko. I'll have to redo that one, these all have to be perfect. Getting a couple a little bit off could cripple you for months." Probably only weeks given her status as both a jinchūriki and an Uzumaki, but he wasn't supposed to know that. "You've moved out of the floor space again too."

"Sorry, it tickled and surprised me 'ttebayo!" She looked down at the floor and corrected her position again.

"Good thing I can use the inkless seal jutsu," he said with amusement, "If we were doing this manually I'd have to draw all these on with a brush, and any time you moved I'd have to scrub the whole area raw and start over."

"Wah! That would suck!" She cried out. Naruko barely managed to suppress the urge to flinch as he hit the next point. If the first had been ticklish, located as it was on the outside top of her backside, the second, located diagonally opposite on the inside, where the cleft of her behind met her thigh, was torturously so. She remained tense as he did the points on the other side but then began to relax again as he moved down her legs, back in safer areas."

"There's a couple of points on the sole of your foot, lift up." he said, tapping one ankle.

After doing both feet, he moved around to the front. Idly he noted that his guess about her beginning puberty must have been correct. While she barely had breasts to speak of, certainly not enough to be obvious through the orange tracksuit she usually sported, she had clearly transitioned out of the utterly flat and boyish stage. He could also see the beginnings of a patch of hair between her legs.

Remaining focused on his task he sealed the chakra points on top of her feet and worked his way up her legs.

Fortunately, there were no points directly on the crotch, though there were four points in proximity, on each side of the groyne, where the crease of the leg was, and two just above on the mons pubis, a few cm off the centre of either side.

She had a great deal of trouble keeping still as he hit the points on her belly and sides. It would probably be years before she realised it, but knowing what seal the Fourth had used had allowed him to customise the chakra network seal in advance to ensure there would be no conflicts, the new network would connect seamlessly to the Hakke Fūin (Eight Trigrams seal) and feed into and out of it to ensure the seal remained at full power.

She was tomato red when he covered her chest. Mercifully for her, while there were points on the breasts they were all in relatively safe locations around the outside.

Finally, after the longest seven minutes of her short life, he covered the points on her face and head.

Hotaru actually had a little trouble with her head, the hair dispersing the chakra plumes somewhat, but he eventually managed without having to shave her head like his mum had needed to when she did it for him. Somehow he suspected Naruko would have been displeased with that.

He was actually a little jealous, he'd managed nearly a point per second, so she'd only had to endure a few minutes rather than the hours that so many Uzumaki children had had to put up with. Not that it wasn't worth it.

"OK, all done! Now I just need to connect the dots. I'll try to use the right pressure to not tickle, but it's important that you not squirm. If it's ruined, I'll have to redo any points I've already connected and start over. Do you want me to use a genjutsu to numb your skin?"

Naruko thought about it, then shook her head. "I can take it."

"If you're sure." He said after a long look. "But if I have to start again you're getting the genjutsu and your training will be super hard tomorrow… When I get to your feet, just shift the weight to your other foot while moving as little as possible, I'll take care of lifting it so I don't mess up the seal."

"Right."

Naruko was dearly regretting not agreeing to the genjutsu as Hotaru traced over her back, this was way worse than just being poked. 'Way better.' that treacherous little part of her that was starved of human touch disagreed. At least he was being quick about it. He was already to - 'oh gods' - she clenched involuntarily as he drew a diagonal across her bum, barely avoiding squirming. 'I should have gotten the genjutsu, this was a mistake!'

He did one foot and she realised with mixed anticipation and dread where he was going next.

Naruko bit her lip as he traced a circuit around her special place, avoiding any inappropriate touches and did her other leg. Nonetheless a feeling of warmth pooled in her lower belly, and instead of tickling like his pokes had, a thrilling sensation shot through her as he did her belly and sides. She was breathing a little heavily by the time he did her chest and finally her head.

At last he stepped back and with some crazy fast hand seals - she was gonna have to learn to do that! - activated everything and all the marks on her body lit up blue and got warm, before the whole thing got sucked into a little mark on her diaphragm like his. Even the ones on the floor! So cool!

A strange sensation came over her as her chakra suddenly felt like it was half empty, and yet all there at the same time.

"There we go, almost done - this next one won't be as bad." The red headed idiot said as he made another different pattern on the floor. And it wasn't. It was way worse!

It was going much faster, but whatever had happened to cause that electrifying sensation to replace being ticklish was still there! Still, Naruko was a kunoichi and bore with it admirably.

Suddenly he reached out behind him, one hand never breaking contact with her knee, and picked up his shirt, wiping the inside of her thighs before tossing it back outside the circle and continuing to place the seals on her legs.

Naruko was confused, until her eyes fell on the shirt and she saw with utter mortification the damp streaks where he'd obviously wiped wetness off her thighs so he could keep placing his seals.

She knew what that was, gramps had made sure a nurse explained things to her when she'd run to him crying when she'd started bleeding, not having anyone else to go to. She'd gotten aroused! And he'd seen it! And just wiped it away like it was nothing, and kept drawing his seals with, she had just realised, his face right there a few tens of centimetres from her crotch.

She wanted to curl into a ball and die from embarrassment, only the threat of being crippled for months - unbeknownst to her not an issue with this seal - kept her in place as he finished up.

Finally he activated this one too, and it became hard to move, and even to breathe. She suddenly felt as if she was in the middle of a long jog.

Still mortified she dressed as quickly as possible, then begged off when he offered her a futon for the night and made her escape, trying not to be too rude but wanting to go home and cry into her pillow for a week or two.

Of course, by the time she was halfway home she'd calmed down a lot. She was resilient like that.

Tucked into her old but still comfy bed, pyjamas on and wearing a cute little nightcap that looked to be eating her head, she thought over her day and despite the embarrassment still worming it's way into her belly, it was overshadowed by the emotional highs of the day by a wide margin.

She had a B ranked jutsu now! And it was a super great one that could help her be Hokage! She could almost feel her dream becoming real when she reached out in front of her. And then there was… Hotaru-kun's words echoed in her head; "You deserve to be helped.", "You're worth the effort.", "You're one of my most precious friends."

Naruko hugged her pillow to her chest, burying her face into it with a soft smile, little tears of happiness at the edges of her closed eyes. Her chest filled with a warmth entirely different, and so much better, than the heat that had built up earlier.

Inside a cage in a dark corridor, lying in a pool of shallow water, a head lifted from its doze as it felt the resentment that made up, what it considered to be, its host's true self abate, and a feeling of warmth and peace washed over it, radiating from outside its prison. Unable to resist the rare pleasant stimulus, Kurama, eldest living child of the Sage of Six Paths basked in the feelings for a few moments before it caught itself with a sneering snarl, and turned away grumpily. If the little shit was going to keep it imprisoned in this dank hole, the least she could do is feel miserable in return.

It was a pretty sentiment, but petty sentiment was all the mightiest being alive had left to it, everything else had been taken from it by Senju Hashirama and Uchiha fucking Madara.

Even thinking that name left a sour taste in its mouth. The greatest pleasure that remained available to it was the petty satisfaction it took from the knowledge that Senju had killed him as a result of that fight and was now dead himself.

If it could just get that other one… well, it could almost tolerate its situation then. At least it wasn't staked to a fucking boulder this time around.

---

Chapter 6

---

Chapter 6

Hotaru yawned as he sat down next to Chōji for lunch the next day. He'd been running taijutsu drills for half the night in a training ground to make up for time lost to training Naruko, while a dozen of his clones spread variously throughout the library and study had been training in moulding elemental chakra and experimenting with new fūinjutsu and ninjutsu.

A clone had actually come up with a couple of new jutsu last night, when a little splash of water from a clone practising a suiton jutsu had triggered the memory of the small amount of slick, sticky liquid that he'd gotten on one finger on the way down Naruko's thigh last night, before he'd wiped it - and the stickiness on the finger - away with his shirt on the way back up.

He was now the dubiously proud wielder of the Suiton: Nurunuru bunshin jutsu (Slippery clone) as well as the Suiton: Nurunuru kage bunshin jutsu (slippery shadow clone) and Suiton: Suberi yasui ryū (Slippery Current). The basic and autonomous version of the clone jutsu would both burst upon being popped, covering the area in an incredibly slippery water based lubricant, one that had been just as incredibly annoying to clean up when his stupid clone had tested it in the study, and then popped to avoid being cussed out when removing the liquid with another suiton had failed to remove the slippery residue.

The worst part of the whole thing was that the clone was him so it was still his fault. The suberi yasui ryū, which his clones had thankfully been wise enough to let his outdoors main body test out, released a low pressure but fast moving wave of the same lubricant about twenty cm high that could cover a large area quickly.

The whole branch of jutsu was likely less useful in the field than its sticky counterpart, the Mizuame (starch syrup) family of jutsu, but it was novel and unlike the mizuame syrup the subtle variation to the chakra required to successfully water walk on top of it was not yet well known.

Hotaru wasn't in a hurry to use it however, as he was pretty sure that almost any adult, and definitely every woman, who interacted with the jutsu would immediately recognise what the slimy liquid was in imitation of.

Pulling his lunch scroll and tossing a second to Naruko, who was avoiding meeting his eyes for some reason, he unsealed his tonkatsu pork on rice with stir fried veggies to Chōji's envious groan, despite having a lunch box three times the size of Hotaru's meal. His mother was no slouch in the kitchen either, she could easily be considered a master chef, Chōji's meal was definitely of higher quality than his own. Despite that, there was simply no comparison between having a room temperature lunch prepared hours ago and a lunch fresh off the stove.

"Here you go Chōji." he held out a slice of breaded pork to his food loving friend.

"Thanks Hotaru!" The heavier set boy's face lit up.

Ino squeezed into the seat on his other side, forcing Hinata to make room while shooting her a dirty look, and fully invading his personal space as usual. Hotaru could tell by the way her chakra moved that Hinata was disgruntled by this, but she was far too much of a sweetie to show it.

"It's so unfair that you get hot lunches every day," Chōji complained for the millionth time. "I'm sure everyone else feels the same way about the gourmet feasts you pack every day." He gave his usual response. As usual, Chōji perked up at the reminder of his mother's stellar cooking and dug back into his lunch happily.

Next to them, Shikamaru rolled his eyes at their little ritual. "How many times do you two plan to have that exact same conve--"

"Hotaru-kun! Why don't you try one of my fried shrimp, say aaaaah!" Ino cut Shikamaru off, holding an expensive fried shrimp up to his mouth. Shika wasn't game to complain - he was already sporting a black eye from taijutsu practice yesterday after his comment about her figure.

Hotaru half turned in his seat and gently took her hand around the chopsticks, then meeting and holding her gaze, he guided the food back to her own mouth. "No cheating," he said firmly, "The agreement was that you'd eat all of it."

Ino pouted, while Naruko and Kiba snickered at her expense.

"By the way Naruko, I let you sleep in this morning, but from now on you'll be getting up an hour before dawn to go for a run."

"What?! That's crazy!" she wailed. Then realised she'd met his eyes and turned away slightly, picking at her food awkwardly.

Fortunately Kiba offered a distraction.

"What do you mean crazy? I've been doing that for years!" Kiba objected hotly, "Hell, half the shinobi in the village do it, right guys?"

He was met with a mixed response; Shikamaru had zoned out completely at Hotaru's mention of his worst nightmare, occasionally he'd give a small shudder. He wouldn't be offering a verbal response from the look of it, but then, everybody who'd known the boy for more than five minutes knew his answer.

Ino screwed up her face in disgust, she was eyeing Naruko suspiciously. "My dad does, but there's no way I would give up my beauty sleep!"

"U-um I also get up to run before dawn." Hinata offered shyly, poking her index fingers together.

"Huh? I never seen you out running?" said a puzzled Kiba.

"We um, that is m-my F-Father won't let me run the village paths. M-main branch Hyūga have to run the compound perimeter."

"Whoa, that sounds so boring!"

Hinata nodded sadly.

"We run in the afternoons." Chōji finished the group.

"Which you'll be using for other exercises, so the morning it is. Make sure you get up on time, if you're asleep when I knock I'll be breaking in and waking you with ice water."

"Waah! So cruel!" Naruko cried despairingly.

"You'll get used to it."

"Which part, your cruelty or the runs?" Shikamaru interjected with snide humour.

"Yes. Hey, on that note why don't I talk to your mum about you joining us?"

He paled, "Shutting up!"

Kiba snickered. And there was a lull in conversation while they ate. It was broken by Ino reaching the end of her food.

"Hey!" Ino burst out, firmly out of patience, she'd been stewing over Naruko's and Hotaru's behaviour since morning. "What the hell's going on with you and Hotaru-kun anyway! You've been weird all morning!

Even Shikamaru rolled his head to look at her from where it was now resting on his hands.

"What?! Nothing! Nothing weird happened 'ttebayo!" Naruko burst out in panic.

"She's probably just still embarrassed that I saw her naked." He threw her under the bus shamelessly, fully prepared to be dragged under with her if it meant seeing her flustered like this.

"WHAT?!" Ino screeched.

"What! No! It isn't! We didn't! It wasn't like that 'ttebayo!" the fox whiskered girl panicked.

Unfortunately for Hotaru, he didn't have a camera to capture this moment for later. Unfortunately for Naruko, Hotaru's memory was made perfect by his reincarnation, and he knew genjutsu.

"Why were you looking at Naruko-chan naked," Kiba asked.

"I put the same seal on her that I put on you and your family." Hotaru explained unabashedly.

"Oh." he ate his last strip of jerky. In Inuzuka fashion he preferred his meat nearly uncooked, some kind of side effect of their man-beast transformation, but they had to make concessions to shelf life like everyone else, so jerky was a decent alternative in Kiba's view.

"Hey, where did you get a million ryo? I thought Hota was making you lunch because you could only afford cup ramen?"

"A million ryo?" Naruko asked, confused.

"I'm making her lunch because she doesn't know how to cook. Buying normal groceries is cheaper than an all cup ramen diet." Hotaru interjected dryly. "And I offered to do yours for free too, but your mum insisted on paying for you."

"Oh. That's cool then. Hey, obstacle course today?"

"Sure. Prepare to lose slowpoke!" So saying, he stood up to leave, but Naruko wasn't letting it go."

"A million ryo?!" she half shouted, half asked.

"Hmm, well Tsume-San thought it should be three to five million, but I gave her a discount as a Konoha shinobi. The stronger everyone is, the safer we all are after all."

Naruko looked like she was having trouble processing the idea that she was given a seal worth three to five million ryo. Ino was still in shock about Hotaru seeing Naruko naked, and Hinata… Hinata was tapping her fingers together again, looking down with her face beet red, a small trickle of blood coming from one nostril.

He got a few steps away, realised he hadn't done something and turned back. Turning the nearly catatonic Ino's face with one gentle finger on her chin and tilting her head back, he bent over and pecked her on the lips for about a second.

Promise kept, he left to run the obstacle course with Kiba.

"Alright, here's how this is going to work." He and Naruko were at the same training field as yesterday.

Hotaru unsealed a big stack of numbered metal tiles and a timer. "You make a bunch of clones, let's say thirty-five for now, and have each one take a tile."

"Kage bunshin no Jutsu!" there was a massive puff of smoke. Unfortunately shouting the name did help with the mental component of performing a jutsu, serving as a kind of mental trigger. But it was a crutch that he fully intended to train out of her. Eventually, there were more pressing issues right now. She'd made closer to sixty clones.

When the scramble for tiles was done he called out "Right, anyone with a number higher than thirty-five put your tile back and dispel." Nearly half the pouting clones dispelled.

A tap of a foot raised a pillar to waist height in the middle of the clearing. He put the fuinjutsu based timer on the pillar, and made six shadow clones himself. Coming into existence already knowing their tasks the clones split up.

The first caught a scroll of supplies tossed to him by the original. The contents of basic storage seals weren't replicated by clone techniques; though he had designed a more complex storage seal that would access a specific space, even from a replicated seal. He used them for storing important objects, since if the seal was destroyed he could just create another linked to the same space.

It could also be used to send items from one place to another by having two seals tuned to the same space. That would make a good chunk of the safer missions genin took obsolete though, so he was keeping it to himself. He didn't want his classmates forced to take more dangerous missions before they were ready to earn their pay.

"Clones one through five with me!" the clone with the scroll called. Two other Hotaru clones followed him.

A second group of two clones waved, "Six through fifteen with me."

The last clone stayed at the timer. "Clones sixteen through thirty five-with me!"

The original Hotaru rejoined Naruko-prime. "Alright, us originals will be doing the physical exercises that clones can't. You missed your run this morning, so we'll start with that, and then move on other exercises like crunches. No point in practising punches and such till we've ironed out your form."

"Alright! Let's go 'ttebayo!" She punched one hand into the air. Unlike Kiba who was still struggling somewhat to adjust to his resistance training seal, Naruko had gotten used to it by the first fifteen minute break this morning. By the end of the run, the resistance would probably have increased slightly given her regeneration.

"Hold on, I'm not done yet. Never train just your body when you can train your brain too. While we run, I'll be putting you under genjutsu at random times. You'll have to spot what's wrong, and tell me when you were put under it, so keep a lookout."

After a moment of consideration he said, "And if you feel any clones pop, replace them unless you're running low on chakra, they should pick up where the one that popped left off."

"Right." She nodded and followed him out of the clearing. They'd only be circling this training ground for now, so Naruko would be able to replace her clones.

"Alright!" the clone with the scroll unsealed a long table, four chairs and a pillow, as well as a bunch of books and stationery.

"Oh no!" one of Naruko's clones whispered, realising where this was going.

"Oh yes!" Hotaru's said with a big grin. "From now on, clones one to five are the Brain squad. We'll be going over the things an awesome Hokage needs the most. Don't even think about dispelling because we'll just have Naruko remake you. You want to learn awesome jutsu right? Well the things I teach you here will let you make your own awesome jutsu, and fix a lot of your other problems besides."

The Narukos' eyes sparkled at the idea of creating her own jutsu.

"First off, who can tell me, what's a ninja's most useful, powerful and most important weapon?"

"Ooh! Awesome jutsu!" clone three chimed in.

"Wrong!"

"A kunai?"

"Nope!"

"Chakra?" Hotaru sighed internally. Well, at least his version could actually pronounce chakra.

"A ninja's most powerful weapon is their mind, Naruko. You can beat a ninja who's stronger and faster and more skilled than you if you can out think them."

"Oooh." the clones chorused. "We're not exactly the best at classes." Naruko five understated sheepishly, rubbing her elbow.

"You aren't stupid Naruko. You come up with brilliant plans for your pranks sometimes, and you can be surprisingly perceptive. You just need training and discipline to bring out that cleverness all the time. Your knowledge is currently your weakest skill, so we're going to fix that."

Another Hotaru stepped in,"But first a ground rule. Brain squad clones will be different from all the other clones; they'll be doing hard, mentally taxing work for the most part, so you are always going to wait at least twenty minutes after dispelling a mind clone before you dispel another clone, understand?"

They all nodded.

"Good, don't want your brain running out of your ears," he joked to the fearful green tinged faces of the Naruko Brain squad.

"So clone one! You're going to have the easiest job, but also the hardest, and it's the one that you'll probably hate the most. Unfortunately it's one we'll need to do for a long time to come."

"You're going to be meditating!" H-clone three threw her the pillow.

"What?! Whyyyy?" she whined "How will meditation help me become Hokage?"

"Meditation has a lot of benefits, it calms the mind, teaches patience and can help you relax. For ninja it can also help you balance and circulate your chakra, but that's the next step. For now, we'll start with just getting you to do nothing for a few hours."

He saw her mutinous look, so threw in, "Learning to meditate is also the first step to a technique that can make you a super ninja! I can't teach you the full technique myself since I can't do it either, but if you ever get a summoning jutsu it might have a sage who can help you learn it. Sages are as powerful compared to ninjas as ninjas are to ordinary civilians."

N-clone one rushed forward and grabbed the pillow, then ran over to a tree and sat down on it cross-legged. 'She really is easy to motivate.'

"Naruko's two and three over here with me." H-clone one said, going to the table and gesturing at the two seats next to it.

"Okay, so you," he tapped the right clone on the shoulder, "are going to be practising your kanji, then we'll move on to sealing script. This is the first step to learning fuinjutsu, the most powerful art, and the art that the Uzumaki were feared so much for mastering, that the other hidden villages ganged up to wipe us out."

He placed a stack of paper and a brush in front of her, along with a stack of square cards fifteen cm to a side. On each card was a large kanji with the stroke order and direction marked as well as the meaning and pronunciations of the character. He briefly showed her how to read it, and how to make the various brush strokes. Then instructed her to take her time and do each one fifty times, showing him when she finished each copy until he said she had that one down.

"I want you to work hard on this one, because if you graduate to genin in three years without even being able to make your own explosive tags and basic sealing scrolls it'll be an embarrassment to the name of Uzumaki that you carry."

"Right! I'll be a sealing master in no time, just you watch ttebayo!" He patted her shoulder.

The second clone got a pen and a test sheet for reading comprehension. He asked her to fill it out, to much grumbling, and fifteen minutes later got back results even worse than expected. No wonder she struggled to maintain interest in class.

"You and I will be reading books together. If there are any words or characters you don't understand, say so and I'll explain." He handed Naruko a copy of the easiest book he'd brought, and sat next to her encouraging her until she opened the book and began to haltingly read aloud. Eventually she'd get good enough that he'd no longer be needed. Hopefully by then she'd have learned to enjoy reading.

Back with N-clone four, H-clone two had been having a much easier time. He was going over the memory exercises taught to them at the Academy - both mundane and chakra enhanced - and how to train them, all while the two of them played memory games. When he was satisfied with her performance, he'd move on to logic puzzles and eventually ninja tactics and strategy, she could definitely use some training there. That would be months off yet though.

Next to him, H-clone three was meeting more resistance trying to go over basic theory, but had finally hit on a track that seemed to be working.

"Look," the slightly frustrated clone said to N-clone five, "You remember how I said you had a bunch of chakra, right?"

He made an image on the table with an illusion technique. Technically they were called genjutsu, but Hotaru preferred to distinguish between the inner genjutsu techniques that altered people's senses by tampering with their chakra, and the outer illusions which modified light to create a real image that could even be captured on a camera.

The image created depicted a grey man generating chakra in a ram seal pose, in his belly was a taijitu with its yin half marked "Spirit" and its yang half marked "Body"

[img: proxy.php?image=https%3A%2F%2Fstatic.wikia.%2Fnaruto%2Fimages%2F2%2F28%2FChakra_Moulding_Diagram_%2528Normal%2529.svg%2Frevision%2Flatest%2Fscale-to-width-down%2F1000%3Fcb%3D20090507021139 =945f8a60720c5235de1dcf3097d38b71]

The picture

"When you make chakra, you're mixing together your physical energy from your body, called 'yang', with the spiritual energy from your mind, called 'yin'," he explained, pointing at each half of the divided circle in turn.

"Now," he gestured to the 'body' half, and it swelled to dominate the circle. "This is you. You have bunches and bunches of physical energy and not much spiritual energy, so when you make chakra you have to use mostly physical energy. But! Chakra is stronger when it's perfectly in balance," he made an animated image of two people firing a jutsu towards each other, the jutsu on one side was filled with Naruko's unbalanced taijitu, the other filled with the same number of perfect yin-yang balls. The balanced jutsu blew straight through the first to Naruko's dismayed gasp.

This was of course an exaggeration, the difference in potency was on the order of five percent usually, in Naruko's extremely unbalanced case it might reach ten percent. With that kind of difference most jutsu would just detonate against each other. Keeping Naruko motivated however was key. He could always correct the misconception caused by the simplified diagram after she'd made a strong start on fixing the issue after all.

"Not only that, but the spiritual energy is what tells the chakra what to do; so if it's balanced properly it will be easier to control, just from that, without even doing any exercises. Which will make all the other boring exercises I make you do easier and quicker, and make any jutsu that you learn in the future more powerful and easier to use."

Naruko was sitting up straighter now, she'd clearly comprehended the explanation with the help of the pictures and had drawn the obvious conclusion on where this was going. She was not, as he had said to her earlier, stupid; she was just ignorant and difficult to catch the interest of.

Absently he noted that N-clone one had just fallen asleep and flicked a jutsu, a tiny spark of chakra that would sting like a bitch but not pop the clone.

The clone with him winced at her fellow's squawk of shocked outrage at being so rudely awakened.

Hotaru changed the image one last time and delivered the coup de grâce, "As if that wasn't enough, the the fact that you're using less than ten percent spiritual energy in your chakra means that if you can get close to matching the size of your physical energy pool, then you'll not only have stronger, easier to control chakra, but you'll have much more of it."

The diagram, depicting one large tank labelled chakra, with a small and large tank feeding into it from above labelled spiritual and physical respectively, began to change, the blue spiritual tank swelling up to match the red physical tank, and the chakra tank slowly changing from reddish to purple as it also grew significantly.

"Now, how do you think you train spiritual energy?"

"Argh! I get it! You don't gotta be a jerk about it." She exploded, then deflated "I guess I gotta study an' shit."

She reluctantly opened the book and listened to him pick up where he left off - the most important points of the Academy year one curriculum, cut down and made as exciting as he could manage. He'd told her he expected notes so he could see she was listening.

H-clone four was having a blast, he and H-clone five had split the ten N-clones into two well spaced rows of five and were policing one row each.

Each clone had been given a single taijutsu move to drill at slow speed while he went along and made corrections to their form. When they were all performing to his satisfaction he planned to pop each of them, and add a second move to each of the second wave of clones' sequences.

He'd repeat that until each clone was performing its own kata, practising the moves and themselves and the transitions between them in slow motion. Then, each week they would increase the speed a little until she could fight at full force.

And of course, once she had the necessary chakra control for some supplementary kage bunshin augmentation jutsu they could add some sparring to the mix.

"Keep the speed low!" she shouted at N-clone thirteen flicking the pain spark at it, while correcting fifteen's footwork. "Going fast isn't what we're trying to do right now, it's more important to get the form right. We'll get to speed later, once the forms have been burned into your brain."

"Ugh, this sucks." a clone growled, "it's like being in first year again."

"Tell you what," H-clone four said, "Master the Academy style advanced forms to my satisfaction without complaining by the end of next year, and I'll teach you the basic forms of the Uzumaki taijutsu style in the third year."

"Really?" the clone asked wide eyed, "isn't that like, all secret and stuff?"

"Eh, it's fine," he waved the question off, "you can't really keep taijutsu styles much of a secret anyway. I'd bet like half the jōnin that fought in the war with my mum and Kushina-sama could do a pretty passable job of teaching it to you if you paid them." 'And you're entitled to learn it, you're as much an Uzumaki as me.' he finished to himself.

"Who's Kushina?" N-clone fifteen asked. Hotaru suppressed a twitch of anger that she hadn't been told and he wasn't allowed to tell her. Fortunately he did have a good plan in motion to rectify that situation.

"The Fourth Hokage's wife, she died next to him in the Kyūbi attack."

"Oh." she said, subdued.

'Yeah, oh.'

Unlike the brain squad and taijutsu group, H-Clone five had his entire twenty strong group performing the same exercise, leaf sticking, while he went around the circle offering advice like, "You're using too much chakra," and "Stay relaxed, this uses so little chakra it should barely be a noticeable effort for someone with reserves like yours. You definitely shouldn't be trying so hard you look constipated."

Once every five minutes, on a ding from the timer, he would pop the clone that felt like it was doing the best job of keeping its chakra flow low, updating the rest of them, then reset the clock. A new clone would arrive shortly thereafter to replace it.

He moved into the middle as he felt their roiling discontent rising.

"Take a break and listen up gals," he called," I know you hate this exercise and the teachers have been harping on about it for years. But this exercise is the single most important thing you learn at the Academy after moulding chakra itself."

"It is the foundation that every single ninjutsu, genjutsu, taijutsu and even fuinjutsu is based on. If anything that you do uses chakra at all, it relies on this exercise. That also means that all the awesome jutsu that you want to learn and even the more interesting exercises, are all locked behind this one exercise."

"If you can't buckle down and master this exercise, then forget Hokage, you won't even graduate. I believe that you can do it, but only you can decide if you will do it."

He looked around and, finally, found looks of determination instead of anger. "Now, I can see that you're nearly always blowing apart the leaf. That means you are all using way too much chakra. So instead you can use these," he slapped the pillar, turning the top layer around the clock into thin stone wafers. Extremely light still, but much heavier and sturdier than the leaves.

"Master sticking these to your forehead, and then I'll keep making them lighter till you can do a leaf. Once you have that down we'll try sticking it to other body parts, then sticking more than one, and sticking objects of different sizes and weights."

"What!" a Naruko burst out dismayed, "The Academy doesn't make us do all that extra stuff!"

"What's wrong Naruko-chan, already forgotten what I told you about the secret to true power?"

The clones wore a look of realisation. "By the time you graduate, I expect you to be able to stick five different objects to yourself while sparring and walking on water!"

"I can walk on water? That's so cool!"

"It's the chakra control exercise that comes two steps after this one. The faster you master this one, the faster you can learn it. And hey, look on the bright side, you should only have to master this once in your whole life; so long as you keep using chakra regularly your brain will automatically adjust for the differences caused by your chakra growing."

His past life had read a bunch of stories that suggested that she'd have to do them forever, but those stories really underestimated the adaptability of the human brain.

The Naruko's cheered at that, setting back to work.

---

Chapter 7

---

Chapter 7

Might Gai was on something of a hunt. For the past few days his Youth senses had been tingling fiercely. Asuma and Anko had tried to assert that there was no such thing as a "Youth sense", but then, they often asserted that some kind of genjutsu took place when he smiled. Ridiculous. He shook his head to himself, 'As if a genjutsu could manifest itself as a result of a simple smile! What they feel is merely the Youthful fire burning within their hearts yearning to match my own raging inferno!'

No, Gai was certain that a new fire had been stoked into a youthful roar, and he intended to see that it was cared for. Young Lee had taken his offhand recommendation of setting a self-rule and flown with it, training himself to the breaking point under Gai's incredulous, and discreet, supervision until the boy had begun to question his motivations, at which point Gai had stepped in to feed his fires of Youth once more.

He had recently taken the boy as something of an apprentice for the final two years of the academy, providing occasional guidance in his efforts to master Youthful taijutsu sufficiently to pass his final exam, and had made his position clear with the Hokage. Rock Lee would be allowed to pass with a null score in nin and genjutsu, so long as his taijutsu was sufficient.

Gai's other success story, young Hotaru had needed far less assistance, being blessed with both talent aplenty and the Youthful motivation to match, but he had still been grateful for Gai's input with his physical training routine and like Lee, had taken to wearing one of his most Youthful body suits for his training, albeit under some clothing. 'He did recolour it as well.' That one still made Gai pout when he thought of it.

Gai hadn't seen young Hotaru around in the last few days, save for a couple of brief glimpses when the running paths they'd picked on those days had intersected; but he had seen Konoha's jinchūriki tagging along on his runs at those times, and his intuition, honed as it was through years of work as a veteran shinobi, was telling him this was the source of his tingling senses.

So it was that he was trekking to the third of the five smallish training grounds allocated to upper year Academy students. It was the furthest from the Academy and the residential districts, closer to a few of the clans with large enough compounds to have their own training grounds, and so was even more underutilised than its fellows sadly were. As he approached the clearing he heard the kiais of a group of young female students training, and exercised the excellent stealth skills that had surprised so many enemies and allies alike.

For some reason, people saw his magnificent Youthful appearance, and boisterous personality and assumed him incapable of subtlety. In truth he was capable of stealth and some limited ninjutsu both, he could even cast one or two small genjutsu, though nothing major, he simply had a preference for taijutsu, and had found over the years that in many, indeed most cases, misdirection and fancy jutsu were simply unnecessary. Most situations could be resolved to his satisfaction through forthright honesty and sheer, overwhelming brute strength and speed.

Gai hadn't actually bothered to use the shunshin jutsu in years, on account of his unassisted speed serving him well enough. In fact, given that the momentary speed boost of the jutsu was produced largely by augmenting ones muscles, Gai had found the last time he tried using it that without also having some means of augmenting his perception, like the sharingan or the full body enhancement of the gates, it left him with the same kind of dangerous tunnel vision that cost his hip rival Kakashi his eye.

Remaining concealed in order to scope out the situation Gai peered into the clearing only to behold a scene of such glorious Youthful passion that even his breath caught in his throat.

Blinking away Youthful tears, Gai took in first and foremost the ten copies of Uzumaki Naruko slowly repeating taijutsu techniques, a unique string of three techniques per clone by appearance repeated over and over paying attention to form and smooth transitions.

Amongst them walked two clones of Hotaru making a rare adjustment when one of the clone's forms slipped. As he watched, Hotaru tapped one clone on the shoulder and it popped. A dozen or so seconds later another Naruko entered the clearing from the other side and ran over to take its place, this time being given a fourth technique to add to the same string.

Gai's masterful eye also began to pick something up then. Doubtlessly someone less versed in taijutsu and the reading of an opponent's body would have missed it, but Gai had trained himself to the point that he could even predict an opponent's entire bodily movements from the positioning of their feet. The clone popped, and Gai saw - just ever so slightly - the movements of the other clones whose sequence included those moves get just a tiny amount smoother and more precise. His eyes widened, realising that Naruko was not only using shadow clones to multiply her training time, a move of pure, Youthful genius that had no doubt come from young Hotaru, but that Hotaru was managing them carefully to maximise the effectiveness of the diversified training regime.

Switching his attention to the largest group of clones, he observed them for a little while, these ones were being popped far more often, to much less obvious effect. Had it not been for the fact that occasionally one of them would fail to stick the stone wafer to their forehead letting it fall to the ground, Gai would have assumed they were attempting to learn some kind of assassination jutsu to launch stone wafers through their enemies, however the gradually less vigorous launches and the shout of triumph when one occasionally managed a second or two of sticking one to their forehead - then got dispelled and replaced - made it obvious that she was attempting the leaf sticking exercise.

The final group was seated at a table. Gai enhanced his hearing with chakra and listened in, frowning at the occasional stumble he heard from the clone reading aloud a relatively simple book, but gratified when Hotaru always encouraged her and offered explanations of the unknown word. Next to them appeared to be a clone practising writing, its tongue sticking out in an adorable look of concentration, every minute or so she'd offer a card of paper to the clone helping her counterpart read, who'd assess it and offer advice.

In the time he watched the clone meditating against a tree had gotten zapped by some kind of little pink spark jutsu twice. The last two clones, when added to the clones practising reading, painted a very dirty picture about the education that young Naruko had been offered - one of them was playing memory games that should have been learned in the second year of the Academy, the other going over basic elemental theory, being taught the cycle of strengths and weaknesses of the various elements with the help of a very Youthful looking illusory jutsu.

One of the Hotarii looked up and made eye contact, then surreptitiously made a few signals in the standard Konoha simple sign language taught to all upper year academy Students. It was impressive that he'd already memorised it so early into his sixth year. "Self, clone, behind you".

Gai raised an eyebrow and then slowly turned to find a clone standing an arms length behind. The ninja in him shuddered. Young Hotaru's stealth would one day make him a terrifying opponent for the other villages. 'It's a good thing Hotaru-kun is loyal to the village, he could have killed me right then.' A bead of sweat rolled down his face.

Following the clone away from the clearing. Gai spoke up, "I must commend you once again on your most wonderful stealth Hotaru-kun!" he proclaimed exuberantly, "If you could though, please warn me when your clone is further away - it is quite unnerving to find someone within striking range unexpectedly, even if that person is an ally."

"My apologies Gai-san, I find it good training to sneak up on people… and their reactions are often amusing." Hotaru admitted with a sheepish grin. "I'll try to keep your request in mind."

"Hahahaha! There's no shame in a little Youthful mischief! But in this case, yes, the ninja who served in the wars could have very adverse reactions to your little prank."

"But enough about that! I have seen your incredibly Youthful training regime for young Naruko-chan! Never have I witnessed such a glorious method of stoking one's Youthful flames before! In truth the contents of said training concern me however. I have seen that you are providing the academic instruction provided to young children, and the leaf sticking exercise is taught in the earliest years of the academy, most would have a very firm grasp on it by now. Is Naruko truly so untalented?"

"She's not untalented at all. She's no prodigy, but she'd definitely be keeping up with Sasuke if she'd been taught properly from the beginning." Hotaru huffed, disgruntled. "Even if you don't count our first session - where she learned the kage bunshin jutsu in a single night, even with the very worst chakra control imaginable - she's made excellent progress on her reading these past couple of days, and as long as you keep her interested and explain things clearly in terms she understands, she soaks up the theory work like a sponge."

"Her chakra control did appear to need significant work, but surely you do her a disservice by saying the worst control imaginable. She looked to be making good progress." Gai objected.

"She is making good progress, but this is our third night training like this. You saw her after about three hundred clone hours of practice. Even if they don't exactly stack up linearly when they're all learning the same technique, well…"

He slapped his palm on the tree next to him, a technique formula spread out on the tree next to him. "Add just a little chakra to that."

Gai looked at the seal and, with his admittedly limited knowledge in the area, saw nothing amiss, so he trusted Hotaru and added a little chakra. Warm water trickled down the trunk from the seal, wetting his hand. He looked at Hotaru.

"On monday night I took her back to my house for dinner, I've taken over her diet too, the basin in my bathroom uses that seal inside the faucet to make water… When Naruko tried to add chakra like you did, the resulting stream came out like a high powered water stream jutsu. It smashed straight through my basin, the bench under it and the floor as well, then the pressure exploded the meal faucet. Luckily the opening wasn't angled more towards her or she may have lost a leg."

"My word!" Gai said under his breath. "I should think the Academy would have addressed this, one way or the other." He didn't say 'either teach her control or expel her,' but Hotaru knew what he meant. Gai, of course, was aware that there was no way they were kicking the village jinchūriki out of the ninja forces, but assumed Hotaru didn't and so his choice of words reflected that.

The Academy was still negligent though; the village superweapon was worthless if it couldn't function, and that was not even getting into the incredibly UNyouthful treatment of a Konoha comrade, the daughter of two village heroes no less!

"It wasn't really the current teacher's fault." Hotaru said begrudgingly, "Naruko's issues stem from the fact that she wasn't taught basics like reading and writing, or let play any of the preparatory games with the other kids until we ended up in the same class and I included her. By the time we were classmates she already couldn't really read very well, or understand the harder words, so she got bored and slacked off which just made things worse. The current teachers just saw a slacker, so they assumed it was her fault and didn't try too hard to help. Same issue with taijutsu, somebody contaminated her training right at the beginning and our current teachers just assumed she doesn't train."

"Hmm, that makes sense. Likely sabotage then." Gai mused aloud, chin cradled in the V of his thumb and forefinger, elbow resting in his other hand. "An excellent assessment Hotaru-kun! I will mention your conclusions when I report this deficit of the teacher's duties to Hokage-sama!"

"Before that however, I must first assist young Naruko in fanning the flames of YOUTH!" He shouted the last word, kicking off with such speed the ground cracked." The clone dispelled itself immediately, but its fellows saw Gai appear as from a shunshin before the smoke even faded.

Hotaru lay back in his bed, ready to sleep for the night, tomorrow was Saturday again, and time for his next step in "The Plan", Naruko had gone home for the night already, chipper that she was finally making detectable progress. She hadn't smashed a single wafer into powder with her chakra tonight and she'd even managed to stick a couple for a few seconds at a time. Hotaru thought that by this time next week, she'd be ready to move on to leaves, and then he could move her onto more complex variations, and teach her a few of the supplementary jutsu he'd come up with to make kage bunshin more useful.

Once she could stick a couple of objects of differing weights to any part of the body, the tree walking exercise would be a cakewalk for her; it was basically just sticking a large object to her feet after all. It would also be much less chakra intensive on her clones to learn that extra nuance with stones of different sizes than to figure it out while trying to stick something that weighed a good thirty five kilograms to her foot. Learning to judge the chakra needed for multiple sizes for objects would hone her skills far more for use in jutsu than just learning the set amount needed for 'person' and 'leaf' as well.

Gai, after giving his clones teaching Naruko, and the girl herself, a few pointers on adjusting the standard forms for the female body, had offered her enthusiastic and genuine praise for the amount of effort she was putting in, and then spent a few minutes going over his future plans for Naruko's training. Before he left he gifted Naruko one of his Taijutsu Master's outfits, exiting with the same flair he'd entered with and a promise to bring Lee next week to receive his "Youthful training seal". Hotaru had offered it while the man was assessing his training plans, seeing as he'd needed to mention the seal anyway.

Naruko had, like her counterpart in the story read in his past life, taken at first to calling him "Bushy brows sensei". She'd been over the moon that an actual adult had thought she'd amount to something, and that had been before she found out that she'd been talking to arguably the strongest jonin currently on the village roster.

The taijutsu master's outfit was currently lying folded on his table where she left it after dinner. He'd offered to recolour it orange for her - as much to tweak Gai's nose as to make her happy - but he'd definitely be buying her some other clothes to go with it. He wasn't going to let her walk around in a skin tight bodysuit.

He laid back, cutting the lights off with a pulse of chakra, sent down a chakra string to the switch, and closed his eyes.

He opened them again when a black bag was roughly pulled off of his head. A bright light shone into his eyes, and his body was bound by what felt like leather straps and he was manacled to the armrests of the chair at his wrists. He flexed his legs lightly. Legs too. There was a chakra suppression seal applied to his gut, and separate ones applied to the manacles as well by the feel of it.

The person who'd removed the bag left before his eyes could adjust to the bright light. There was nobody else in the room, but Hotaru could see two people he recognised behind the glass through the kagura shingan, one's chakra bubbled with amusement, the other seethed with irritation bordering on anger.

The kagura shingan shouldn't work with his chakra sealed of course, being a chakra based jutsu like any other, but for some strange reason his 'captors' had forgotten to account for the secondary chakra system they had no idea was even possible, let alone was installed on him.

Not that that would have stopped him anyway, even if he hadn't taken the precautions his mother had taught him as a matter of Uzumaki pride, the CYOA powers would prevent a seal from trapping or restraining him. They likely hadn't even bothered kicking in because he wasn't restrained at all. He was just curious. Had the village caught on to something he'd done, or given who the second presence was…?

They left him to stew in what they no doubt hoped was worry for nearly ten minutes after they knew he was awake, before the door opened, and his 'captor' walked into the room.

"Uzumaki Hotaru, Shinobi Academy student number 102602," He started talking menacingly.

"Hello Yamanaka-sama. I wasn't expecting to see you this evening." Hotaru said pleasantly.

"You don't seem surprised to be here Uzumaki. Do you know why you're here?" Inoichi asked, a little thrown from the blase attitude coming from a child who'd woken up in an interrogation room unexpectedly.

"I had guessed, when I sensed you standing on a branch of the tree in my yard for an hour, that you planned to appear in my room to give me some kind of shovel speech…" Hotaru started, "but I doubt you'd go so far as to kidnap an innocent ten year old Academy student, a clan heir at that, and bring them to an interrogation room for something so petty."

He could feel the roiling irritation in Inoichi's chakra turn to slightly concerned shame for a moment as he realised this probably was crossing a line. The person behind the glass was laughing now.

"You're lucky I recognised your chakra by the way - all the good hiding spots in my yard have a bunch of explosive seals all over them. You were standing right on top of one the whole time… If I had mistaken you for an enemy I might have blown you up."

Inoichi's eyes widened and he paled, a cold shiver ran down his spine. Even the person in the observation room had sat up straight at that. Just for a few seconds, before she bent over laughing even harder.

"I can't think of anything I've done wrong," 'that you should know of' "and if I'd witnessed something without knowing I wouldn't think you'd have restrained me, or kidnapped me for that matter…" Hotaru thought aloud. "Which was kind of all of my guesses, so… Nope. No idea why I'm here." he shrugged

Inoichi sighed, shoulders slumped, then rallied himself. "Alright, I guess this was going a bit too far. Let me release you and then," his voice hardened and he glared menacingly, "we'll talk about why you think you might need a shovel speech."

He moved to untie Hotaru. It was beyond tempting to pop the manacles open himself, just to see the look on Inoichi's face, but that might be revealing a bit too much; he didn't want to be pushed to graduate early… Even if he could probably have leveraged the weakness of the seals on the chair into a commission for more sealing work.

"Now what's this I hear about you kissing my precious Ino-chan" the man scowled.

"Ino had jumped on the scales and decided to diet again," Hotaru shrugged, "I got sick of holding interventions for her, and I want her to be strong so she doesn't die, so I offered to give her a kiss on the lips every time she ate the full meal her mum packed her. Just a peck."

The tension left his shoulders and he slumped. "Dammit Ino," he pinched the bridge of his nose, then placed one hand on Hotaru's shoulder. "Thank you for looking out for my little girl Hotaru-kun. I'll take care of Ino's dieting, you don't need to kiss her when she eats her lunch anymore." the hand tightened a touch when he said kiss.

"I can't do that sir!" he said, wide eyed and earnestly, "I pinky swore!"

Inoichi blinked, then chuckled and stepped back, brightening up when he had an idea. "Hm. Never mind then, can't ask you to break your word," he grinned evilly. "You said that you only have to kiss her when she finishes her lunch right? Then I'll just have her mother pack bigger lunches! Either she'll fail to finish, or she will force it down and start getting fat, at which point she'll have to put more effort into her training!" the man actually cackled.

"You don't really need to worry about me yet anyway. The hormones haven't started yet. I'd usually say the one you'd need to worry about is Sasuke, I'm pretty sure he's started puberty early, I've heard his voice crack once or twice… But I don't think Ino's his type."

The contradictory father bristled, "What do you mean not his type," he growled, "is my little girl not pretty enough for him?!"

Hotaru snorted. "No, I don't think he's blind. She's just too weak." Inoichi's eye twitched at that.

He scratched his chin. "I think he's too afraid that his brother will come back and kill any friends he makes to get close to anyone. He never accepts any invitations to eat together, or even train… I… I don't think he even went to therapy as long as I did, and his family died right in front of him."

"Hrrn." Inoichi mused. "Something's wrong there, I'll have a look into it. Thanks for telling me, Hotaru-kun." He stroked his chin for a bit. "Say, you're looking a bit tired, I'll have someone take you home. I'd appreciate it if you didn't tell Ino about this."

Hotaru laughed, but didn't make any promises.

The door opened again and Mitarashi Anko swaggered in. "Come on little brat! It's past your bedtime, I'll get you home." she clapped a hand on his shoulder and pulled him toward the door before Inoichi could question the uncharacteristic behaviour.

"Hello Anko-nee," He said as they walked outside into the crisp night air. "You gonna be at the Dango bonanza tomorrow night?"

"All you can eat dango and 50% off booze for three hours, for just a 250 ryo entry fee?! You can bet my sweet ass I'll be there!"

'All according to cake.' Hotaru cackled internally.

"Me too!" Hotaru chirped excitedly, "I can't drink, but kids only have to pay 100 ryo, and all you can eat dango is too good to pass up."

The two, who'd met at Anko's favourite dango stand many a time by 'coincidence', yakked on about the little delicious balls all the way back to his house where Anko pulled him up.

"Alright kid, show me that tree he was hiding in."

"Oooh, so that's why you walked me home." he grinned.

"Damn right, I wanna verify that seal so I can give ol' Ino shit about it for a month or two."

He led her around the back and pointed out the tree. "Just run a little chakra through it, it won't go off - it only responds to my chakra. Night!" He said, getting a dismissive wave back and climbing through his bedroom window, opened with chakra sent to a seal.

The seals on his property wouldn't detonate even if another seal blew on top of them - it wouldn't be ideal to get a chain reaction going next to his house after all.

He fixed the curtain as Anko added chakra to the tree and the entire thing lit up with blue lines. It would only happen if you pushed chakra into the tree, not if you used it to cling to the bark - wouldn't do to warn potential intruders.

Hotaru laid down in bed as he felt Anko zoom off in a shunshin. Two similarly naked clones popped into existence beside him, one behind him about sixteen, the one in front his age. Both looked like a younger version of Anko. The older clone pulled him in against her chest, while the younger snuggled in against his in a triple spoon.

He was feeling just a little insecure tonight, he'd left the security low for Inoichi out of curiosity, true, and allowed himself to be kidnapped. He'd never been in any real danger, but… His home and sanctuary had still felt violated somehow.

Squashed as he was between the warm bodies of the clones however, he quickly relaxed and fell into a deep sleep.

---

Chapter 8

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Chapter 8

Hotaru began his weekend by quickly using fuinjutsu to seal away the pigments - and only the pigments - in Naruko's new bodysuit. He then went about his morning rituals and set out through the window in his kitchen to pick Naruko up for their run.

Behind him, he left several clones - mostly in the study - with instructions to prepare for tonight, and a single clone transformed into a girl with Naruko's body and skin tone, but a different face.

The latter clone had instructions to go to his usual ninja apparel shop and have the bodysuit dyed in a slightly burnt orange, then pick something to go with it. It was in Naruko's body to ensure the fit, but was using another face and different hair to ensure the workers wouldn't refuse her service.

"Good morning Naruko-chan!" he said as she opened the door blearily, still in her pyjamas complete with adorable sleeping cap.

"Is not morning yet." she mumbled. "Not ready yet." she stepped back to let him in.

Her apartment wasn't really that badly kept, definitely better than the few glimpses the anime had given of the other timeline, probably due to a mix of the gender change, it being his experience that on average women were less tolerant of messy living spaces, and the fact that Naruko had had at least a few housekeeping lessons from his mother. Probably mostly the latter.

Still, it could be better.

"I see you still haven't discovered the secret of having your clones clean up the house?" he asked, amused.

"Tried," she answered through a yawn, "they wouldn't do it, just popped 'ttebayo!"

"Ah but there's a couple of things to keep in mind while you are making them if you don't want them to slack off."

At the prospect of escaping housework, Naruko shook off most of her fatigue and paid attention. Hotaru didn't know whether it was the meditation paying off - sitting still for fifteen hours over three days doing nothing had to do wonders for her patience - or if was just some combination of finally understanding the lessons and having someone who cared encouraging her to pay attention, but she'd improved noticeably on the paying attention front over the past three days. She'd even been putting a genuine effort in at the Academy, despite the lessons being too advanced for her right now.

Hotaru could remember the entire curriculum verbatim, so they'd catch up with the classes eventually, though it would probably take a year or two if they stuck to just a few study clones.

"Firstly, you need to remember that the clones are you, you aren't shoving off work on someone else, you'll still remember doing it after all, but isn't it better if you just remember it and don't make your body tired doing chores?"

"Oooh! I can do that 'ttebayo!"

"Secondly, you need to be willing to do the chores yourself. Your clones are you, if you aren't willing, they won't be either. If you're having trouble getting the right mindset, then just do the chores along with your clones, at least then it'll only take a small fraction of the time it would take on your own!"

"Got it, got it! What else?"

"Nothing else, that's it. Now, why don't you go get ready, and I'll give your apartment a quick clean with ninjutsu."

"Right! Thanks Hotaru-kun!" She bolted towards her room to change, hoping to get back out in time to watch the ninjutsu.

Despite her hurry she barely made it back out to see the last of the cleaning, four clones and Hotaru himself using various small jutsu - mostly suiton to finish scrubbing surfaces and pulling soapy water out into the sink. One of them was tidying up with invisible chakra strings, objects flying about everywhere, appearing to tidy themselves. What had taken him maybe two minutes would have been hours of scrubbing for her.

She looked around with sparkling eyes, no doubt anticipating the day when she would be able to do the same.

Hotaru's clones popped as she inspected the rug, then wandered the kitchen. "It's a different colour 'ttebayo!" He wondered if she meant the rug or the grout, "and everything is so shiny!"

"I'll teach you the jutsu for it once you have all the exercises they need down." he promised her.

"Yes!" Naruko punched the air. "Alright, let's run 'ttebayo!"

She bounced impatiently in the doorway while he walked out after her and locked up.

"If you can make it five laps of the village without stopping, I'll buy you a bowl at Ichiraku."

"Deal!" She took off without waiting further.

Hotaru chuckled and wove his first genjutsu of the run.

A sweaty Naruko plonked down on the stool of Ichiraku, the store just opening. Food stalls such as Ichiraku that catered primarily to areas with heavy ninja traffic, like near the Hokage tower or Jonin ready lounge, often opened much earlier than the ones in the primarily civilian regions of Konoha, simply because of the weird hours ninja kept. The village never truly slept.

This early in the day, Teuchi's brother Teujin was in charge of the stall. Naruko claimed to be able to tell the difference between the ramen made by each brother, but it tasted the same to him. He suspected she was trying to convince him to set up a test so that she could attempt to prove her boast while eating free ramen. She could be scarily cunning when ramen was on the line.

She still hadn't detected the last genjutsu he placed on her though, so when she took her first mouthful it tasted like lemon juice.

Spitting and coughing to Teujin's confusion she went to complain but then saw Hotaru sipping from his bowl, taken from the same pot, like nothing was wrong. She frowned, then realised what had happened.

"Did you put me under genjutsu again 'ttebayo!?" She shouted, outraged. "How could you make my precious ramen betray me!"

"If you want to enjoy your ramen, best tell me how long you've been under and what I changed."

Naruko' s face screwed up in desperate thought, racking her memories for anything out of place.

Some time passed, Hotaru kept eating until finally "Ah! You added puddles on some of the streets! It hasn't rained in a week! And it started three streets after we left the running track."

"Two, but good enough for ramen." He waved, dispelling the genjutsu.

"Yahoo!" She dug into her ramen with gusto.

When she was around halfway done, and he was nearing the end of his bowl, he spoke up again.

"On our way in, we passed a man walking a dog. What colour was his scarf?"

"Hrrm blue, I think?"

"And his dog's lead?"

"I don't remember."

"Describe the dog."

"It was white, about knee high and had some brown patches…" she thought about it, "one on its right rear hip and a patch on its left ear. Hey, Why do you keep asking questions like this whenever we eat?"

"Hahaha even I know that one Naruko-chan. He's training you to notice things. I see ninja parents doing it with their kids all the time, Hotaru's mother Honoka-san did it for him here at the stand a few times too."

Hotaru nodded. "You're quite perceptive Naruko, you notice a lot of things unconsciously, and you've been doing well remembering them, especially since you learned the memory exercises. But for a ninja, noticing unconsciously isn't enough. You need to be able to notice things like the puddles when it hasn't been raining consciously and infer their meanings, because it might mean you're under an enemy genjutsu."

"Huh… That makes sense… What does infer mean?"

"'Infer' means to gather up all the information you have and use it to figure out things that you don't know. For example," he nodded at a woman a few seats down on the right. "What does that woman do for a living?"

Naruko leaned around him and squinted at her, drawing her attention. After a minute or two she gave up.

"I don't know." she said finally.

"She's a seamstress." Hotaru stated. "Look at her hands, see the calluses on her index fingers? Those kinds of calluses come from sewing a lot, and she's not a civilian doctor, because she neither looks tired like the hospital staff always do, nor smells of disinfectant."

"So I took those three clues, and inferred that she was a seamstress. See?"

"He was right too," the woman said, looking and sounding impressed.

"Ooh, and I need to be able to find the clues and use them to find out if someone's a ninja here to assassinate the princess or something! I got it 'ttebayo!"

' Princess? What princess?'

"That's about right. So we'll keep doing these questions about things you've seen and what they mean until it's second nature for you. Now, how many people have come and gone from the stand since we got here?"

Check. Hotaru moved his shogi tile to check Shika's king.

After he'd dropped Naruko back home, he'd invited her to come with him to the Dango bonanza that night, then gone and spent some time at the library where he read a fascinating scroll on the art of decrypting ciphers.

When he finished that he wandered the village, where he helped an old retired kunoichi Kuno-san, who had lost a foot in the war to move some furniture, and in return had gotten some cookies and the riveting retelling of the time she'd infiltrated the wind Daimyo's court to assassinate one of the nobles funding Suna for the war.

Which was probably not appropriate in the least to tell a ten year old if you asked a civilian, but older shinobi had very different views, and there were no civilians present.

"Stalemate in twelve moves." Shikamaru sighed. Hotaru had checkmate in fourteen if he stuffed up, and he had it in fifteen if Hotaru did, but he knew by now that neither of them would do so. So they'd end up stalemated before either of them could take the King.

"Good game. Should we go to meet the others?"

After leaving Kuno-san's house, Hotaru had sent off a pair of clones to invite Hinata, Ino, Sasuke, Kiba and Chōji to go to the Dango bonanza with him, while he visited the Nara clan holdings to play a few games of shogi with Shika.

Predictably, Sasuke had refused rudely, but everyone else had agreed to come - as if Chōji was ever in doubt - although Hinata would be accompanied by both a branch member and her younger sister.

Not that he minded, lil' Hanabi was adorable, always acting all serious.

"Might as well, we don't have time for another game."

"We could play in our heads while we walk?"

Shikamaru considered that as they headed back to his house to let his parents know they were going.

"So we'd just give the coordinates we were moving the pieces from and to and remember the arrangement?"

"Pretty much. Think you're up to it?"

Shikamaru narrowed his eyes at the challenge. "C4 pawn to D4," he stated.

"G1 pawn to F1" Hotaru returned.

Shika stuck his head in the back door. "Dad, we're heading out to meet the others," he called, before turning back with "A4 gold general to B3".

The two of them went back and forth picking up Chōji, who was happy to let them play mostly uninterrupted then Ino, who was decidedly more disruptive.

Shika ended up taking the win right before they reached the Hyūga compound. Privately Hotaru blamed Ino for hanging all over him and constantly distracting him with questions while Shika was given freedom to think, but he didn't say anything of the sort - nobody liked a sore loser, and Shikamaru still beat him about three to four games out of ten.

Hotaru had actually turned off the automatic improvement to his shogi skills from his essence when he noticed Shika's average slipping to losing more than winning. The game wouldn't be any fun if he never lost. Shika's dad actually still won more than he lost, just barely so Hotaru had hope that the boy himself would catch back up as they got older.

The Essence of Ideal Growth was a bit odd, he imagined it like a series of taps in the back of his mind, all of them labled with the name of a skill or personal attribute and opened to a constant trickle. When he trained in something new, a new tap was added.

When he was training, or just using the skill, the flow would increase drastically, but if he concentrated a little he could control the flow manually somewhat, reducing it to a slow drip that would merely maintain a skill, so that it didn't deteriorate from lack of use, or even increasing it to a rushing spray.

He'd never felt the need to speed it up beyond the boost given by training however, and had in fact slowed a couple of attributes down to the point where they were, not stopped but, barely improving at all. Most notable among these was his base intelligence, because he had no desire to lose his ability to relate to his peers due to an overwhelming gap in mental abilities. Already he needed to seek out the Nara clan to have a really engaging conversation.

Naturally the Hyūga were aware of their approach before they even arrived, given that their branch member guards periodically flashed the byakugan to check for anything amiss. Just as predictably for a clan that probably thought more of themselves than they really should, the Hyūga made them wait.

Hotaru could actually see Hinata and Hanabi sat in front of Hiashi waiting for him to finish some document. Once he was satisfied that they'd waited enough, he gave the girls permission to go and they started toward the front entrance. Hiashi went back to his documents, he hadn't actually been waiting for anything in particular, he'd just wanted to waste their time.

"U-Um, sorry to keep you waiting." Hinata said bashfully.

"That's OK Hinata-chan, looking your best takes time!" Ino excused her.

"You do look beautiful tonight Hinata-chan!" Hotaru piped in, "You look super cute too Hanabi-chan." some effort had obviously gone into their appearance.

Chōji made a noise of agreement. Shikamaru just muttered "We're only going to a dango shop." under his breath.

Hanabi sniffed a bit, as if trying to look down her nose at someone a good deal taller than her. "Thank you Uzumaki-San." She said politely.

Hinata looked like she was going to faint from the praise but stuttered out thanks as well.

"Where to next? Kiba?" Ino said.

Hotaru shook his head, "Kiba and Naruko live on the other side of the shop to us, they'll meet us there," and they would, Hotaru had already gotten a ping confirming that his clone had met them both and was on the way there. "Straight to the shop from here."

It wasn't a long walk to the shop, and Hotaru spent a good portion of it trying to engage Hinata in proper conversation past Ino attempting to monopolise his attention. He didn't have a lot of luck, but he managed to gently provoke Hanabi a little towards the end, drawing her into a heated debate with Chōji over the merits of Mitarashi dango vs Kibi dango. Hotaru had to admit she was pretty eloquent for a 5 year old.

"Oi! Everyone, over here!" Naruko and Kiba were waving to the group from a table outside the shop, which was packed, but had expanded out into the street for the special event.

For some completely unpredictable and inexplicable reason, that had nothing at all to do with a clone of Hotaru putting a corrupt manager of the illustrious Gato shipping corporation under a genjutsu, the Dango shop had received a vast oversupply of stock. Given that some of the ingredients were perishable and would not make it back to the depot, the company had opted to write off the loss, leaving the Dango shop with a whole bunch of ingredients of limited shelf life.

Usually, living in a ninja village, the shop owner would purchase a seal capable of preserving the extra for later use, however this time around, a visitor from out of the village, having overheard the situation being discussed behind the counter, had made a strangely 'compelling' suggestion; that this might be just an opportunity to hold a special event in order to boost sales. Thus Dango Bonanza was born, a three hour all you can eat event with low cost alcohol to draw in the tired village shinobi.

It was going very well for the proprietor so far, the night was only an hour in and profits were about to reach the point that would have justified the sale even without all of the free ingredients. Ninja generally loved a good bargain, and cutting down on the large markup for the alcohol meant large numbers paying the entry cost for the event, as well as increased alcohol sales to make up for the reduced profit margin somewhat.

The dining area was cordoned off from the street by a rope, a genin team looked to have been hired for a D rank to serve as waiters, one of their number manning the entrance to collect the entry fee and stamp the hands of paying customers.

Usually these would be a rather expensive choice of employees for a shop like this, but the village often subsidised simpler D ranks somewhat to ensure that there would be plenty of work for their junior trainees. This was the reason that D ranks were mostly for fresh graduates - the village usually broke even, but they didn't really make any real money on the in-village glorified chores.

Joined by Naruko and Kiba once they'd all dealt with the up front payment for their three hours of Dango, they went up to the counter to place their Dango orders.

"Hey brat!" An already half sloshed Anko waved with a stick of her favourite Hanami dango from her seat at the counter. There wasn't really an abundance of extra space there with how busy the shop was tonight, but Anko was probably their most regular customer, and a powerful ninja besides, so they weren't about to deny her her usual seat.

'Or,' Hotaru thought to himself, watching the way the proprietor's eyes tracked Anko's swaying assets under her open jacket, 'the old man is just a letch who likes his eye candy.'

"Hi Anko-nee," Hotaru grinned, "Started early did you?"

"You betcha brat! Was the first one through the rope 'n' I'll be the las' one out!" She took a swig of her sake, "Shit of a day! Ibiki's had ol' Ino on punishment duties all day 'n account of that mess last night! And he had me down there scrubbing all the cells clean by hand fer not stoppin' 'im!"

"My dad!? What happened!? And why would Hotaru know about it." Ino piped in.

Anko blinked and peered at Ino. Then threw her head back in a raucous laugh. "That's Ino's girl! You're already out 'n' runnin' about with 'er after las' night!? Gods brat! You got a sack of cast iron!"

"What happened?" Ino stomped her foot.

"Yer old man decided it'd be funny to give your little beau there a scare into staying away from your lips, so he plucked 'im outta bed and plonked 'im in an interrogation chair, all sealed up!" She took another swig of sake.

Ino squawked in outrage that her father would try to take away her lunch kisses, which she'd been lording over her fellow fangirls excessively for the past few days. (Without explaining why she was getting them. She didn't want anyone to copy her after all.)

Hinata gasped quietly in the background, and he heard Shikamaru give a quiet "Troublesome."

"Oh! It gets better!" Anko crowed, by now she'd drawn a little attention and she had both Asuma and Kurenai standing behind her listening.

"So there the brat is, sittin' there in an interrogation chair, cool as a cucumber, an' Ol' Ino walks back in and starts on his 'ntimidatin' speech, and the brat says 'Hi' bold as brass and proceeds to tell your da' that he's lucky he recognised 'is chakra, seein' as he was sittin' on an explosive seal out in the tree the whole hour! An' the brat knew 'e was there the whole time!" she slapped the bench, "I might have blown you up thinking you were an enemy 'e says!" She took another drink.

Asuma was laughing quietly, Kurenai had covered her mouth delicately and turned away a little, but her shoulders shook. Most of his classmates were giggling, except for Ino, who'd buried her face in her hands. "Daaad! So uncool!" she wailed quietly to herself, though Kiba, Naruko and Hotaru all heard it.

Kurenai turned to Hotaru, an appraising look in her eyes, "I didn't know there was anyone in your year level with chakra senses that advanced." She stated. Hotaru wondered if she was considering asking for him to be placed in her genin team in a few years. He knew she already worked with Hinata on occasion.

It wouldn't be bad for a second choice, but Hotaru already had what he was pretty sure would be a sure fire way to get places on Naruko's team worked out. He just needed to wait for the right time.

"Tha's what Ino told Ibiki! Hahaha! He wasn't too impressed. Ino's gonna be doing all the department paperwork for a long time." She took another swig only to find her bottle empty. "Another!" she called, waving her empty bottle to the cook, "and three more Hanami!"

By the time everyone had gotten home, it was well and truly dark, Ino had been particularly exhausting for the remainder of the night, alternately fawning over him for the 'cool' way he'd 'dealt with her dad' and apologising for his actions no matter how many times he'd told her it was no big deal.

Still, all told they'd had a good night, he'd even managed to avoid a little drama by using a small genjutsu to make the proprietor see Naruko as someone else, and another on Naruko herself to hide the sneers the Hyūga chaperone was sending her way, though he thought it more because of her clothes than her jinchūriki status.

Naruko's fashion choices were… Well, the tracksuit she wore was closer to Naruto's Shippuden suit than the red-blue monstrosity he'd worn at her age, but it still wasn't great. Fortunately, his clone had taken some initiative and bought her a few extra outfits.

The Hyūga, one Hotaru hadn't been introduced to, had naturally noticed the genjutsu the next time she flashed the byakugan and discretely pulled him aside for questioning. She'd even had the good grace to look abashed that he'd been hiding her own rude conduct from his friend and had made an effort to school her face for the rest of the evening.

Now Hotaru sat watching a tipsy Asuma and Kurenai, dragging a solidly drunk Anko back to her apartment and putting her to bed through the kagura shingan. Once they'd left, no doubt for the kind of rendezvous that would one day result in a daughter, if his presence hadn't butterflied her into someone else (which seemed likely).

He waited a short while until he was certain she was sound asleep, and he couldn't see any byakugan active, before pinging a pair of transformed clones to go ahead.

He watched them appear via hiraishin, tag placed months ago on her shoe with a toe while at the Dango shop, swap out Anko for one of the clones transformed into her likeness, before the other clone jumped back into the study directly with Anko, a seal applied to keep her asleep.

Time was important now, he didn't want to leave the substitute there any longer than necessary. He casually strolled into his study, a few moments later a clone came out with a scroll to sit at the table for some reading.

By the time the real him got into the library the entire floor had been cleared, everything sealed into the walls temporarily. Two clones were already working on decrypting Orochimaru's seal. He joined the last clone in preparing the immense seal that would analyse the biological material placed inside it and extract the details of any kekkei genkai techniques contained within.

This seal, the seal which produced the templates used by his other formula to grant a bloodline to a person, was about five times as complex as the seal that actually made use of the templates. On its own it took up most of the library floor.

Focused on the important seal at hand he ignored the "Ah ha!" of the clones finally cracking the curse seal's encryption. By the time he was done and the other clones had started to double check his work, he had a small vial with a tiny amount of liquid inside and a trio of scrolls waiting for him.

The scrolls contained the fragment of Orochimaru and a measure of his sage chakra respectively, the bottle the small measure of Jūgo's enzyme used by the seal to draw in nature energy. The final scroll was quite a bit larger and contained a copy of Orochimaru's original work.

He went over the design after he had the checking clone ping him an update. The work was simultaneously shoddy and brilliant, he could see places where the man had taken wholesale pieces of other, usually Uzumaki seals and butchered them together clumsily. For all that though, the idea was brilliant. Although not at all similar to what Hotaru himself was going to do with it.

He handed it off to a fresh kage bunshin which began to recreate Orochimaru's seal from scratch, although he'd be leaving out everything designed to make the user compatible with Jūgo's enzyme (since it was no longer needed) and also everything designed to facilitate Orochimaru's possession or resurrection, which made up the bulk of the seal in all honesty.

Hotaru placed the enzyme in the analytical formula and began to charge it. A blank scroll unrolled in the output section.

This always felt like it took forever, but realistically it took only about ten minutes to run.

And then it was done, the seal powered down, output scroll densely covered from edge to edge with the secrets to Jūgo's sage transformation bloodline.

But he wasn't done yet, the clone he'd tasked with designing Anko's new seal had been joined by the other clones while he oversaw the creation of the template. They were currently discussing the best way to improve the user's control over the curse seal's transformation.

"Don't bother," Hotaru interrupted, "We can't let her know anything has changed just yet anyway. It'll perform the original function right?"

The clone sniffed "Of course it will, ten times better than before, and I included our idea about a little surprise for Orochimaru if he triggers his fail-safe."

"That'll do then. We can revisit the seal when we have an excuse to actually work on it with her permission… and when we have the ability to write seals controlling nature energy."

"So tomorrow then?" another clone said dryly.

Hotaru very maturely stuck his tongue out. He popped the clones and looked over the not-so-cursed-seal. Happy with what he saw, he picked up the enzyme and the scroll of Orochimaru's chakra, then applied the new seal to Anko's naked torso in the same location as the old. The enzyme went into the part of the seal which would take in nutrients from Anko and produce more enzyme, while also releasing it into the bloodstream when activated, the chakra was used as an identifier for Orochimaru's fail-safe hurt/kill switch, which would now distinctly not hurt or kill Anko when activated.

Finally he reapplied the evil sealing method around it and covered Anko up. Without activating the seal, which she never willingly would, she'd never know anything changed.

He left the room and swapped back out with the watch clone. When the coast was clear, the watch clone hiraishined over to Anko's apartment and replaced her body double with the original in her bed. He then removed the Gelel stone the decryption clones had placed in her as a service; she'd wake up hangover free.

As a last act, while the body double was removing the sleep seal, it activated a scroll which lit up the room with a brief barrier that would seal any stray chakra the pair had left behind. Any scent particulates in the room would disappear with the clones, and scent traces on her body could easily be explained by their interactions at the Dango Bonanza.

Hotaru had a brief moment of alarm as they flashed back to the study and popped, when he saw a byakugan activate just as they flashed out, but as he continued watching he became sure that they hadn't noticed anything. Their chakra flow remained completely calm, with no hint of alarm. He'd gotten out just in time.

He wasn't close to done with his night though. There was so much new data to go over!

---

Chapter 9

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Chapter 9

Hotaru woke late on Sunday morning, it was in fact the latest he'd ever slept in. Nearly 10:30am. He felt like shit.

He'd had a productive night over all, pulled apart the entire sage transformation bloodline and gone over it with a fine comb to try to understand what caused the user to rage out. Frustratingly, he'd not noticed anything present in the template that looked as if it would cause psychotic rages.

Knowing that he'd need to take the unaltered bloodline himself anyway to unlock the CYOA purchase of the same, he'd gone ahead and integrated the template. Upon receiving the cold, heavy-feeling confirmation of the acquisition notice, he'd made another template of his own bloodline, and compared the two.

It felt a bit like cheating, but then, the Academy always encouraged cheating when you could get away with it, outside of harming your village or leaf ninja comrades anyway, and truthfully the question was bugging him so much that he didn't think he'd have been able to sleep anyway.

He had ended up pouring over the two templates and taking scans of his own head into the early hours of the morning, when he finally found what he thought was the issue.

The CYOA had always, unlike the powers of the Essence, worked its magic within the context of the world he was in. He was supposed to get an extra dimensional library? He got one, but it was accessed by a sealing scroll, and made by his ancestors; A chakra blade? Inherited from his dad; A bloodline for better overall vision? Actually present in his DNA.

Most importantly, when he'd acquired the Byakugan through the CYOA he'd been able to make cosmetic changes to the eyeballs themselves, and they'd shown up in the template when he'd checked on Wednesday.

To his satisfaction, the CYOA hadn't disappointed this time either. There were three small changes in his template when compared to the one taken from Jūgo's DNA.

The first change he'd noticed made a tiny alteration to the enzyme itself, he'd not taken long to determine that this was the result of the cosmetic change the CYOA had once again allowed. Mainly to differentiate himself obviously from Orochimaru's curse marked soldiers, he'd instead had the skin tone shift a hair shade lighter instead of darker, taking on an almost golden sheen in the right lighting. He'd not wanted to go too pale skinned and be mistaken for an Otsutsuki later either. The sclera of the eye would turn blood red rather than the black of Orochimaru's cursed soldiers.

The second and third changes had taken hours to work out, as they affected changes in the hosts actual biology, but he'd eventually isolated the second as the change that was responsible for allowing him to retain his mind when using the ability, although he'd only figured out how it did so after giving in and scanning himself actually using it.

The second change shifted the location of the gland that produced the enzyme, and it wasn't till he'd seen it swell slightly when in use that things had clicked. Lacking a subject possessing the original bloodline to scan, he'd needed to painstakingly calculate where the template would grow the gland, but upon doing so he'd found that it was right up against the amygdala. The gland was swelling with the influx of activating chakra and putting pressure on the amygdala which, combined with chakra activity in the area, caused the hyper aggression experienced by Jūgo's clan.

The change moved the gland behind the brainstem where it was just expanding into the brain's cushioning, and any runoff chakra activity would instead enhance the cerebellum and increase the user's sense of balance instead of their anger.

The final change was a modification to the gland that served as a toggle switch allowing the bloodline to be fully shut down.

Hotaru had paid for satisfying his curiosity however. He'd avoided chakra use last weekend for a reason after all, and he'd not activated the Byakugan inside the study to begin training away the veins caused by its activation until Wednesday. He'd been allowing his chakra to acclimate to the new state of his body. Using it wasn't dangerous per se, at least not the brief activation he'd allowed, he'd not have done it if it could cause any long term complications, at worst it would exhaust him, but it hurt like a bitch now, hours after the fact.

So worth it though. Hotaru hated unsolved mysteries.

At least he'd had the foresight to pre charge a seal for producing a few dozen clones to take care of Naruko's training so that he could restrict his chakra use to basic exercises required by the Academy until his next rest day on Wednesday. He should be fine by then, which was fortunate because Hayate was due back from his mission on Tuesday, assuming he wasn't delayed, and would no doubt want Hotaru to have dinner on Wednesday with himself and Yūgao.

Hotaru pottered around the house for a little while, cleaning the slow way, and had just decided to return to bed to sleep through the worst of the full body soreness he was experiencing.

A knock on the door put paid to that plan, opening on a disgustingly energetic Naruko, here for her cooking lessons as per his promise.

Briefly he wondered if this was what it felt like to be Shikamaru, but knew if he showed even a hint of displeasure at her presence Naruko would pick up on it, and likely be devastated by what she'd see as rejection, so he pasted on as genuine a smile as he could manage.

"Afternoon Naruko-chan!"

"Yo, Hotaru-kun! I'm here for my cooking lessons!"

"Sure, come on in, I've got enough groceries left from my last shop to make a week's meals for the both of us and then some."

Hotaru led her into the kitchen and unrolled a scroll on the bench top, he bit his finger and swiped it across, using the chakra in the bare drop of blood that escaped before it healed to avoid using chakra himself. The bench filled with market fresh veggies and a few steaks of beef and pork from the butcher.

"We'll start with how to cut the various vegetables." He began.

"I know how to cut things 'ttebayo!" Naruko complained, "I've been using Kunai for years! Weapon classes were one of the ones I paid attention to the most!"

Hotaru chuckled. "Alright, show me how you hold the knife." He flipped it and caught the blade, handing it to her handle first.

Naruko took a good grip on the blade, but Hotaru shook his head. "That's a great way to stab someone, but cooking is about control, not power. Try a pointer grip like you were manoeuvring a guardless tanto."

Naruko looked at the knife in her hand blankly for a moment, before scratching the back of her head. "Ehehe… I must've been kicked out for that one."

"I'll add Kenjutsu to our schedule." Smiling patiently at her enthusiastic celebration, he demonstrated the pointer, and then the pinch grip, and took an onion off the bench. "Alright grab me a small bowl from that cupboard there, I'll demonstrate the proper way to dice up an onion, then you can dice a few of them to get the hang of it. This end is the root, leave it on till the end or it'll make you cry. First peel off the outer papery layers, and halve it through the root like this…"

Hotaru spent the next half hour demonstrating how to cut various vegetables and then letting Naruko go at several of each, then showed her how to cook rice over the stove.

Fortunately he didn't want to be standing over the stove channelling chakra all the time, so his stove ran off a large reservoir of sealed chakra despite producing flame via fūinjutsu.

The rice he portioned half of into multiple bowls, and the other in a large container. He sealed the lot to keep them warm, feeling a fresh twinge of ache in the arm he channelled chakra through. It'd get unsealed next Saturday and placed in the fridge. For today the fried rice would come from last week's cooking, which had been sitting in the fridge overnight after being sealed in stasis all week.

"When you're making fried rice, you always want to make sure that you use rice that's been in the fridge overnight. I made this one last week and took it out of the stasis seal last night." he explained to Naruko.

"Wouldn't fresh rice be better though?"

"If it's too fresh, it'll be wet and won't take on any colour when you fry it."

"Ooh! Noodles too?"

"Only if you are frying them, most dishes use them fresh."

The two went back and forth for a while, Hotaru doing his best to answer any questions Naruko had while he showed her how to fry up the various dishes they'd prepared ingredients for. Since this was the first lesson he'd kept to fried rice and some simple stir-fry dishes.

When everything was done he'd picked two stir-fry bowls that were almost entirely made by Naruko and sealed the rest. Then they sat down for dinner.

"It's not as good as yours." Naruko grumbled, pouting.

"It's plenty good enough. You didn't think you'd be as good as I was on the first try did you? I've been cooking for two years now." He raised an eyebrow.

"No.. Just…" she looked down.

"It tastes good. Your cuts are fairly even, and you'll get better with practice, you didn't burn anything, or undercook… It could use maybe a touch more salt on the beef, but better to be under, where you can add more at the table than to be too salty. You did a good job. Be proud."

"Y-Yeah!" her mood turned around. "That's right! I'm awesome after all 'ttebayo!"

"Don't overdo it though," Hotaru laughed.

When they finished, he told her, "Now it's time for the most awful part of cooking!"

He let the statement hang until he saw the tension in Naruko's shoulders rising.

"Cleaning up!" Naruko shot him a dirty look and relaxed.

"But we're not going to be doing it. Why don't you give the shadow clone a try, see if you can get them to do chores while you relax the way I explained yesterday?"

"Just you watch! I can do that no problem!"

"Kage bunshin!" POOF! Four clones appeared.

"Alright, let's get this done!" the first clone shouted. Like her creator, she had no inside voice.

" Yeah!" the other three chorused.

All four of them disappeared into the kitchen where the sounds of pots and pans clanging and sloshing in the sink soon sounded.

'I wonder if she managed the right headspace or if they just shared her enthusiasm with impressing me?'

Hotaru sank back into his couch, half listening to Naruko chattering about some pratfall she'd witnessed from a civilian on the way over. His body felt heavy.

"And then the guy starts shouting at this one person who'd been watching from the shop entrance, and trying to blame him for tripping him 'ttebayo! Like everyone hadn't just seen him fall on his ass because his dumb scarf was too long! Why was he even wearing a scarf in…" Naruko trailed off, realising Hotaru had fallen asleep sitting up.

"Geez, I thought you were under the weather! You should have said something!" she growled half to herself.

She'd asked if he was feeling well early into the lesson, but he'd just said he was fine and patted her on the head. Stupid stomach butterflies had distracted her.

And not the cool kind of butterfly like Hotaru's Chō seppun (butterfly kiss) taijutsu attack he'd used a few times against Sasuke before the teacher had banned it for causing too much damage. He said he'd invented that right? That meant he was allowed to teach her if he wanted! She'd have to ask later.

No, these butterflies left her feeling all squirmy and red faced, and then that idiot would laugh at her.

Blowing a stray hair from her face in frustration, Naruko stood with her hands on her hips. "Well, since you've fallen asleep like a little kid, I guess this onee-chan will need to put you to bed!" she said aloud, pointedly ignoring that he was a month and a half older than her.

She manoeuvred him onto her back with an "Up you co-! Oof! You're way heavier than you look!" and staggered her way into his room, laying him on the bed and working his sandals off.

Things went wrong when, as she was getting him under the cover, the sleeping boy reached out and pulled her into a cuddle on the bed. Naruko flailed quietly and struggled to get loose, red faced, but Hotaru's sleeping grip might as well have been iron manacles.

"Geez! How strong are you 'ttebayo!?" She exclaimed semi-quietly, "Your muscles don't even feel tensed!"

Naturally, being asleep, Hotaru failed to respond. Naruko continued to try escaping without waking him, but gradually the warmth of the hug seeped into her, sapping her will to leave, and the butterflies were back and seemed to be robbing her arms of strength.

'It wouldn't hurt to just lie here for a bit and enjoy the hug, right? Just until he lets go?'…

Hotaru awoke to several oddities; first he came-to with the feeling of his clothes twisted around his body uncomfortably, rather than to the silky smooth sensation of sheets on bare skin.

Secondly, his sleeping clone - equally clothed - was not in a comfortable spooning position, but was rather draped haphazardly across his chest, face in the crook of his neck and drooling all over him. Her legs were entangled to his own, clinging like a limpet, her arm on the side facing him was likewise hugging him tightly. She also smelled oddly like Naruko.

Thirdly, he didn't remember going to bed at all, he'd sat down on his couch and… Oh. He'd fallen asleep and Naruko must have put him to bed. He had no idea why she'd climbed in with him, but he guessed it didn't really hurt anything if she hadn't felt up to going home.

Appraising his situation, he came to the conclusion that he'd no hope of getting up without waking her or using chakra, something he wanted to avoid as much as possible, at least for today, possibly tomorrow too depending on how he was feeling. With that in mind, he reached over with his free hand and shook her shoulder.

A few seconds later she began to wake up, bleary eyed, and then froze like a deer in the headlights as she gained her bearings enough to realise she was lying on him.

"Good morning Naruko."

It looked like all of the blood in her body made a pretty good attempt at packing into her face.

"Hi." she finally squeaked out.

"You need to get up, it's time for our run." she squeaked and rolled off him, "We'll head to your place first to get you a change, we can pick up your new workout clothes after the Academy."

Hotaru changed into his workout clothes, uncaring that Naruko was still in the room, getting an even greater squeak, and then turned around to see her peering at him through large gaps between the fingers of both hands.

"That's not how covering your eyes works," he said dryly. "Is this why you decided to sleep over? To get a peek?"

Hotaru was of course teasing, since Naruko was adorably squeaky this morning, however it seemed her brain had finally caught up.

"This wasn't my fault 'ttebayo!" she exploded loudly, "You grabbed me and pulled me into bed with your stupid unbreakable hug, and anyway why are you just changing with a lady in the room!"

Hotaru shrugged, "If it really bothered you then you could have closed your eyes… Or the gaps between your fingers."

He thought steam might actually start whistling out of her ears soon.

"Come on then, get up! We'll have a breakfast shake and go to your place to change, then go for a run."

Hotaru left for the kitchen to get some shakes.

Naruko, sitting alone on his bed, let out a low whine. "He didn't even say sorry!" She complained softly with her red face buried in her hands.

"If you aren't out here by the time I finish this you're paying for your own ramen on Wednesday," Hotaru's voice floated through the door.

Naruko leapt off the bed, embarrassment temporarily forgotten in the desperate race to protect her free ramen, and bolted through the door.

"I'm coming 'ttebayo!"

Hiruzen took a long drag on his pipe, dark emotions boiling over what his subordinate, Might Gai, had just reported to him. He'd asked to make a report after coming in to pick up a mission, and had waited around until Hiruzen had been able to clear a few minutes for a private word.

Naruko hadn't even known how to read properly? He'd known she struggled to pay attention in school, but the reports of the teachers hadn't indicated any issues until the last two years, when she'd moved into the senior half of the Academy, and even then they'd focused on her skipping lessons; something he'd corroborated with his crystal ball on many an occasion.

He'd thought her tennant just left her with too much energy to sit still for so long. Gai's report however, painted a darker picture.

"I'd like to ask you to continue looking in on them from time to time Gai" He puffed some smoke, "Unfortunately I don't often have the time to look in on young Naruko-chan and her training."

Gai threw him a thumbs up at full arm's length, his smile actually pinging as the light ran across it. It had to be some kind of unconscious genjutsu, but Gai insisted they were being ridiculous, and the Hyūga had never managed to catch any chakra use.

"Don't worry Hokage-sama, you can count on me!" he declared, and Hiruzen knew he spoke the truth. Gai was definitely one of his more reliable subordinates.

Hiruzen mulled over the other thing Gai had mentioned. It was an offhand comment, but it was something he'd gotten quite a bit more detail on from other sources.

"Have Hotaru-kun put the training seal on yourself as well," he ordered, "the village will cover the expense for both yourself and young Lee. I've heard some good things about that technique from the Inuzuka, and I'd like your opinion on the matter."

"Right! I'll get right on it Hokage-sama! I, Might Gai won't let you down!" with a burst of incredible speed, beyond that which Hiruzen himself had been capable of even in his prime, Gai leapt from the room via the window.

Hiruzen sighed, "I hadn't dismissed you yet."

"Should I go retrieve him, Hokage-sama?" Raido asked.

"No, we were more or less done anyway," Hiruzen waved him off. "Still though, an original seal of the level Tsume described. We may just have a budding seal master on our hands, and at such a young age too. I'd worried that the loss of Honoka would delay Hotaru-kun's mastery of his clan's specialty by a decade or more. It seems that the Academy instructors weren't exaggerating for once when they proclaimed him a genius."

Genma tilted his head, "I recall he had Naruko practising calligraphy too. Do you think he intends to teach her as well? Given her heritage, she may just have a talent for it."

"Would that be safe? Letting such an… excitable novice learn fūinjutsu, when she's the host of the nine tails?" Raido asked.

Puff… Puff… Hiruzen looked out the window towards the Academy. "It would be best if we kept an eye on the situation, I think. Naruko-chan learning fūinjutsu would be helpful for the strength of the seal, we just need to ensure that proper warnings are given, when he, if he begins instruction on sealing. They will, at the minimum, need to be made aware of the foxes' presence."

'Although if Hotaru-kun is as good a sensor as Ibiki's report indicates, he may already have guessed what Naruko is. Possibly even who she is."

Hotaru looked to the side where Naruko was striking a post, counting out loud in the mid four hundreds. At five hundred, she'd switch to kicks. He himself was running the same drill at a post of his own.

Her form was quite good now, the clones' practice paying off. Now she just needed to add power. He'd sped the taijutsu clones up again and increased their reps. Naruko should be ready to learn a jutsu to increase the clones' durability enough for light sparring by the end of the week if he was judging her progress with the stone wafers correctly. That jutsu wouldn't need her to improve enough to stick a normal leaf, although the update ping would require at least that level of fine control.

In the clearing, one of Hotaru's clones, the one watching over her chakra control practice, noticed Gai and Rock Lee approaching at speed. Shortly thereafter they stepped exuberantly into the clearing.

"Ooooh! Never before have I seen such a method of training!" Lee shouted. "Gai-sensei, I must redouble my efforts to-" Lee cut off, looking around "Gai sensei?"

Gai was on his hands and knees next to Lee, a small thundercloud raining over his Hanging head.

"Once again my youthful green taijutsu master's outfit has been recoloured!" he moped.

Hotaru and Naruko had picked it up from the shop when the Academy let out, well, Naruko had waited outside while a transformed Hotaru went in.

She now sported a burnt orange taijutsu master's bodysuit covered by a V-necked, armless tunic long enough to serve as a skirt. The tunic was a very dark grey, and was clinched around the waist by a burnt orange cloth belt. On the back of the tunic was the Uzumaki crest in white. Her hands were wrapped in bandages to protect them while striking the logs.

Much of the inspiration for the design had come from the design of another orange loving fighting character Hotaru's past life had enjoyed.

"Come on Gai sensei, don't be like that." Hotaru cajoled, "It's nothing personal, Naruko just wanted to stay true to her own style you know?"

Mood lifting faster than than seemed possible for someone sane, Gai leapt to his feet with a laugh, his huge grin pinging in the sunlight. "Of course you're right, young Hotaru! It wouldn't be right to expect her to abandon her own Youthful brand for my own!"

Gai looked down to see that Lee had been so motivated by Naruko's hard work that he'd fallen to the ground and started frantically doing push ups while they talked.

"Now then, why don't we have a talk about this Youthful training tool you've designed. Hokage-sama himself has heard of it and has ordered me to purchase the seal for both Lee and Myself for testing at the village's expense."

Hotaru's eyes widened. He'd expected these ones to be give-aways, and the Third taking an interest in them might mean a purchase for ANBU. Even at the heavy discount the village received that would make him filthy rich by genin standards.

Hotaru popped another Naruko clone who'd just managed a full eight seconds of stone wafer sticking, and set about explaining the functions of the seal to Gai and a still physically occupied Lee.

Once the payment came through for this, he'd get the ball rolling on purchasing that plot of land. Land sales in Konoha took a notoriously long time to get approval. Luckily, since he was from a clan, he could expect that the sales would go through and building permits might even be approved by this time next year.

Building permits always took especially long, since any underground plumbing or basement level spaces ran the risk of interfering with underground infrastructure, or even secret tunnels used by the ANBU, in which case you would need to wait for a dōton specialised team with the proper clearance to reroute the tunnels (at your expense) before receiving approval to build anything.

'Things have been going really well recently.' He thought to himself as he applied the seal to Lee, who much to Naruko's shock had stripped without hesitation, already beginning to get used to being seen having started his final two years at the Academy, 'I'm beginning to wonder when the other shoe will drop.'

---

Chapter 10

---

Chapter 10

As it turned out, Hotaru didn't have all that long to wait for the other shoe to drop at all, a near miss with disaster driving home the fact that his meta-knowledge was becoming less and less useful as time went on in chilling fashion.

Hotaru had been having a pretty good Wednesday so far. He'd managed to almost entirely avoid his fangirls for most of the day, and had thankfully caught the one girl who'd smacked her shin and dispelled the usual genjutsu he used to obfuscate his way home - wouldn't do to let them find out where he lived or he'd be in for the same hell as Sasuke, who'd come to school even grouchier than usual today. Shika had managed to worm the reason out of him; apparently someone had stolen a couple pairs of underwear off the line and now he needed to go shopping again, the theft being a recurring phenomena.

Ino hadn't actually managed to finish her lunch today, so no kiss for her. He wasn't bothered by that, but he wasn't really pleased about it either. True she hadn't finished, so he'd kept to the terms of the agreement and not provided a kiss, but he did also kind of agree with her argument that she'd eaten more than enough to fulfil the terms in spirit.

What had swung his decision in the end, was the thought that she too was training to be a ninja, and that if she couldn't think up the basic tactic of removing just enough of the over packed lunch that she could finish it, before getting to the Academy where he could see her discard it, then she probably didn't deserve any rule bending.

He and Naruko had each had a bowl of Ichiraku ramen which he'd picked up on the way to classes that morning and sealed.

He'd gone home afterwards, instructing Naruko to rest today and not train, and giving her one of the scrolls containing a dinner they'd made together on Sunday for dinner. She'd looked disappointed that they weren't going to be having dinner together, but hadn't said anything.

Hotaru still felt a bit bad about it, realising after the fact that she wouldn't have a great deal to do, sitting at home alone with no training to occupy her. He couldn't really just invite her to Hayate's place without asking though.

Once at home he'd completely disregarded his rest day for once, and headed straight for the study eager to get started on training as a sage.

He'd long ago mastered sensing natural energy, the hardest part of senjutsu - sitting and meditating had been part of his routine since basically infancy; but he'd never actually dared to try drawing any into himself.

That was the dangerous part, and sitting there, feeling the crushing weight of the world's power, he'd known immediately that it would be foolish to try without some means to survive the energy flooding into his body.

His power would allow him to learn any power safely in the background, once he began practising with it, but if the first time he tried to practise he was killed, or turned to stone as it were by the natural energy flooding into his body, there would be nothing it could do to save him.

He could, and had, become nearly fireproof by sticking his hand into fire repeatedly, starting with a candle flame and working up from there; if he'd instead jumped into a raging bonfire he'd have been burned to death before any resistance could be obtained. Well, probably not in that case, his regeneration was pretty incredible, but it wouldn't protect him from petrification, and the concept still applied.

It was for this reason he'd wanted Jūgo's enzyme. If the power of nature overwhelmed him on the first go, then his flesh would simply mutate temporarily, allowing him to safely practise without the help of something like fukusaku and his whacking stick. And of course, once he'd made a few attempts, success would be guaranteed. He'd probably have at least imperfect sage mode down by the weekend if he hadn't managed the full thing - he had much better control than Naruto did after all, and probably more chakra too.

Hotaru activated the sage transformation, a wave of glowing blue spread over his skin, leaving the skin behind it paler, though not unhealthy looking. He held one hand up and admired the way it looked slightly golden where the light hit it. Not the most stealthy choice, and truthfully it was probably a decision driven purely by his ego. He didn't regret it though, if he was using sage transformation then non jutsu based stealth had probably gone out the window already anyway.

He felt his forehead, where two horns reminiscent of those possessed by Hamura and Hagoromo had pushed from his skull, and framing them, two much smaller horns stuck through his hair.

A quick circle traced with a finger pulled water from the air in a mizukagami (water mirror) jutsu. He'd recreated that one himself based on a memory of his past life. It wouldn't activate without an attack to reflect, so it made a perfectly fine mirror.

His face bore a dark red mark that ran down the bridge of his nose, coming to a point at the tip, points sweeping down the sides and across his cheeks to run parallel to, and just above, the seal markings on his cheeks that were masquerading as warpaint.

Those each served a different function, one ensured an untainted oxygen supply, the other kept particulates like thrown sand out of his eyes with an invisible barrier when he ran chakra through it.

The eyes themselves were the shimmering gold of a sage, but the sclera were solid red. He activated his byakugan, the gold was replaced with an almost glowing blue disc, the veins on his face bulging grotesquely. Hotaru smiled, he could already see a slight reduction there. Overall he was pleased with the result of his default transformation.

He let the byakugan go and took a meditative position. Within a few minutes natural energy began flooding into his body, he struggled to balance it with his physical and spiritual energy but, as he'd feared, it was completely different to controlling the two familiar and very personal energies, far more difficult. He was quickly overwhelmed, the natural energy flooding into his flesh, which swelled at random. By the time he'd cut off the flow, his right arm was transformed into a huge three fingered claw. From his left shoulder protruded two entire additional arms, although one had a single giant, wicked-looking talon instead of a hand.

'Guess I made the right choice waiting for the enzyme, though…' he looked at his extra arms, finding them surprisingly intuitive to move, 'perhaps I should spend a little time figuring this out before I try again.'

It took him nearly a full hour to work out how to return his body to normal, and another thirty minutes were spent playing around with different growths, adding and removing them until he was confident that he could return to his standard form immediately from anything a failed attempt at sage mode would throw at him.

He actually found the bloodline as a whole to be the most intuitive technique he'd ever used, once he had figured out the mental trick to influencing his shape anyway. Which was probably why Jūgo could make complex things like chakra canons on the fly even while insane with rage now that he considered it.

His second attempt at sage mode had not gone much better than his first. He'd come out of it to find his legs bizarrely fused together into what looked like a whale's tail, and his whole face bristling with spikes. That one had completely ruined his pants. He decided to strip after that, he'd already lost half his shirt when the extra arms burst out of his shoulder anyway.

His third attempt was the most interesting. He'd ended up with sixteen extra, fully functional, eyes covering his torso and one arm, and an additional mouth above his knee, complete with tongue and teeth. He'd also sported a large (non hand-shaped) bat-like wing.

Seeing as those were all useful structures, he spent a little time practising producing them before dismissing the lot. You'd never know when an extra set of eyes were going to come in handy.

The third attempt had been enough to set his essence off, a new mental tap for senjutsu joining the new tap for sage transformation that had appeared during his hour of experimentation.

He considered another attempt, he still had a half hour before he needed to go to dinner at Hayate's place, but ultimately decided instead to work some more on his byakugan. He'd made some progress with reducing the inflated veins, but it was minor, and the blindspot was basically unchanged so far.

---

Tap tap tap. Hotaru clinked his nails on the glass of Yūgao and Hayate's window. Yūgao looked up from where she was cooking over the stove and rolled her eyes, beckoning him in.

"We do have doors you know." Hayate said from the couch where he looked to be filling out a report on a scroll draped over a clipboard. It looked awkward, Hotaru was glad he could fill out entire sheets with the tap of a finger.

"Dad always said that shinobi who formed patterns got killed quickly in the field."

"Kouta was always a bit overenthusiastic about that." Hayate sighed.

"Anko-nee has a bunch of stories about guys she killed by figuring out their habits and waiting in ambush too."

"Of course she would," Hayate put the form down and wiped a hand over his face. He shot the laughing Yūgao a look, "Little help here?"

"I think you're doing just fine, and besides, You never use the doors either."

" I'm a jounin, he's ten! He's never even been on a mission!"

"Good habits start early." She shrugged

"So Hotaru, what did you get up to while we were away."

He scratched his chin pretending to think. "Well, I started teaching Uzumaki Naruko after classes, I'm pretty sure her early education was sabotaged or something because she barely knew how to read. Oh and I made eleven million ryo selling seals to the Inuzuka."

Hayate went into a coughing fit, "Eleven million!?" he said when he got through it. "What did you sell them, an entire detection barrier for the compound?"

"Just eleven copies of the resistance seal. You know, the one I showed you a while back that I wanted to trial for a bit before I gave it to you? Well, I'm satisfied that it works and is safe, so you can have it now."

"Hmmm, you really should have come to us first before doing that, you probably really underpriced that if it works as well as you described." Yūgao said in a chiding tone.

"Oh, I know Yūgao-nee, Tsume-sama told me it was probably worth three to five million each application after I offered it to Kiba for free, the Inuzuka don't cheat their friends. I just decided to offer a discount to Konoha ninja, since making them stronger means we'll all be safer when we trust our back to them… Or when they need to defend our homes."

Yūgao's face cleared up upon hearing Tsume had treated him right, and she was smiling warmly by the time he finished. "That's a very mature outlook Hota-chan, and quite fitting for a future Konoha shinobi."

"Oh! While I'm thinking about it, I made a new seal, still secret. It's not ready yet, but I think it's good enough to help you!"

Hotaru trotted around behind Hayate and tapped his back. "Lift your shirt."

Hayate complied, sharing an amused look with Yūgao, who'd started plating up while they spoke.

Hotaru took a Gelel stone out of his pockets, one of the genuine ones, and pressed it between Hayate's shoulders. A seal spread out over his back, then sucked in the Gelel stone before collapsing into a little spiral and fading away.

"I'm hoping that will help with your cough," he said to Hayate, who had straightened up at the weird feeling of energy spreading through his chest and down his limbs. "Let me know how it goes?"

"Of course, what was that seal exactly? I feel pretty good."

"I sealed pure life energy - taken from trees - into you, with a formula to attune it to your own body."

"Dinner's ready!" Yūgao called.

Hayate took a few deep breaths, only coughing when he was at the deepest part of the inhale. "I feel a bit better already! Thanks Hotaru."

Hotaru smiled, "I only gave that to you at the current stage in development, because when the doctors tried having you draw some of my chakra it helped you, even if it was temporary. This works in a pretty similar way. It might actually make some people sicker since it currently can't discriminate between the host and a disease."

"I'm sure you'll get it down eventually, Hota-chan," Yūgao said, wrapping him up in a hug from behind and placing a kiss on his head. "Thanks for helping Hayate." She said softly in his ear, giving a squeeze before letting go and taking her place at the table.

Hotaru cleared his throat, "Right, well you'll still need to take your medication. I think for best effect you should turn the seal off about a half hour before you do, and not turn it back on for maybe two hours after taking the medication. That should give time for the medicine to kill the disease without making it more resilient, then when it's turned on it should help your body recover faster and boost your immune system by as much as it does the bacteria. You can toggle it by spiking chakra to the seal while holding a rabbit sign."

"That sounds simple enough." Hayate nodded. "I'll keep track of how I feel and let you know how well it works. I know feedback is important for these kinds of things."

Hotaru went a little red. "You, ah… might also want to consider making sure that you both use the contraception jutsu while it's on. There's a pretty good chance it'd boost your fertility too," he said while pretending to be fascinated by his food.

It was so much more awkward talking about that stuff with his family!

"Right! Well, thanks for warning us!" Yūgao said brightly, clearly embarrassed, "So Hayate, you got back much later last night than I thought you would, did something happen on your mission?" She quickly changed the subject.

"Yeah… Well, not on the mission itself, it was on the way back. The mission itself was nothing special, just clearing out a few bandits that had a missing-nin working with them, but just after I came back through Shukuba town, I caught up with Kakashi's Nin-dogs Bull and Pakkun, they were rushing him back toward the village in pretty bad condition."

Hotaru felt a cold shiver crawl up his stiff spine. This was his fault!

"Oh no! What happened?" Yūgao gasped.

"From what I managed to get out of Pakkun, Kakashi got an easy mission, A ranked on a technicality, just because the client paid so much. A land of fire noble was hosting another noble from the land of wind whose son had a bit of a reputation for lechery, Kakashi was asked for by name to guard the noble's daughter. Seems he was impressed by his reputation."

"So what went wrong? He's one of the village's strongest jōnin, right? A mission like that should have been a cake walk for someone like him."

"Yeah, he is, but nothing went wrong with the mission. According to Pakkun it was pure bad luck. On the way back from the mission he ran into two high ranked missing-nin; Suikazan Shizuki, one of the seven swordsmen of the mist and current wielder of the Kabutowari, and Kakuzu of Takigakure. Kakuzu apparently decided he wanted to cash in on Kakashi's bounty."

Hayate took a sip of water and ate a couple more bites before continuing. Hotaru would bet he was drawing it out just to elevate the tension.

"Kakuzu is an S-ranked bounty in the bingo book, and Shizuki is at the upper end of A-rank… Even so, Kakashi managed to kill Shizuki and put his hand through Kakuzu's chest before he managed to escape with the help of his dogs."

"Escape?" Yūgao asked, "Kakuzu wasn't dead?"

"Nope, Pakkun said he got right back up. Said that the only reason they got away is Kakuzu seemed to only care about money, and chasing them would have meant leaving his buddy there, where someone else could come along and steal the corpse for the bounty."

"That's cold…" Hotaru said softly. He was concentrating the kagura shingan on the hospital. Kakashi looked to be recovering fine; his face and torso was covered in bandages and his face appeared swollen though.

"The world of missing-nin isn't a nice place to be, even by ninja standards." Hayate said solemnly.

'I caused this!' self recrimination swirled in his mind. 'I had a clone use genjutsu to arrange for that noble to hire Kakashi, because I wanted to make sure he'd have downtime in the village this weekend. It was supposed to be an easy, safe mission; but I put him in that place when he was probably supposed to be somewhere else!'

Intellectually, he knew that he had no way of knowing what would happen, and he couldn't blame himself for failing to predict the actions of others he'd never even interacted with, but knowing that Kakashi would have been fine if he'd just not done anything made it feel like his fault.

Hotaru was so wrapped up in his thoughts that he almost missed the rest of Hayate's story.

"Bull had been carrying Kakashi for most of a day when I ran into them, and some kind of nasty infection had set into the cuts, I got him to the hospital at best speed and they were able to deal with it in time to save his sharingan eye. He nearly lost it though. Apparently the infection responded really well to antibiotics, so with regular applications of the mystic palm, he'll be back on his feet by next week."

Yūgao snorted. "Knowing Kakashi senpai, he'll check himself out of the hospital for self care by Friday, if not tomorrow. He hates being in hospital, the nurses always try to look under the mask, he'd sooner pay for a medic to make home visits."

Hotaru breathed an internal sigh of relief, he'd have to put off his plans to acquire the mangekyo for another week at least, but his plan hadn't accidentally cost Kakashi his life at least.

They moved onto lighter topics for the rest of the dinner, asking about his training, and time at the Academy.

Yūgao expressed a suspiciously nonchalant in her interest in learning his Suberi Yasui jutsu when he made the mistake of mentioning it in passing.

Hayate was more interested in his plans to teach kenjutsu to Naruko. So Hotaru took the opportunity to fix an issue.

"Say, do you think it'd be OK if I brought her with me next time? I've been having dinner with her recently, and I felt pretty bad that she had to go home and sit all alone."

Hayate and Yūgao shared a look, "Of course you can bring her Hota-chan."

"Mmm, I can supervise some kenjutsu practice after dinner. Speaking of which…"

Hayate took Hotaru out to the back yard and the two of them spent an hour or so sparring to settle dinner before it was time for Hotaru to go home.

---

Hotaru couldn't help but keep a metaphorical eye on Kakashi as the week progressed. True to Yūgao's prediction, Kakashi had indeed 'checked himself out,' on Thursday night, although no part of the process had involved getting permission from the Doctors or passing the front desk.

This kind of behaviour was clearly not entirely unexpected of Kakashi - or perhaps shinobi in general - as the hospital made the switch to a medic visiting him at home regularly without a hitch. Nobody panicked when they found his bed empty either.

On the training front his own predictions were fulfilled when Naruko finally managed to stick the stone wafer to her forehead with regularity mid way through the session on Friday, and hold it for a full thirty minutes by the end of the day.

Naturally there had been an excessive amount of celebration on the part of the orange ball of energy, and a trip to Ichiraku Ramen once more on his ryo to celebrate.

Her morale at meeting one of her short term goals was flying so high, that she'd not even complained once about having the difficulty of the exercise increased. Even her meditation clone was putting in more effort, and that was by far her least favourite activity.

Hotaru hadn't quite managed to perfectly balance sage mode by Friday evening, and had been considering just working into the night since his plan for Kakashi wouldn't be going ahead, when he'd checked up on the man during a juice break outside his study and found something that caused him to choke on his juice.

Once he'd finished coughing juice up, and used a little suiton to pull the last of the residue out of his trachea, he'd nearly gone into a full on panic, even going so far as to, after a quick check for observers, try activating his byakugan.

This turned out to be a mistake. Having never activated it outside the small confines of the opaque room before, he'd not realised that the acuity of the byakugan had been multiplied by the enhanced vision kekkei genkai from the CYOA.

Rather than the kilometre range he'd expected, he'd instead been proverbially smacked in the face with ten kilometres. Unfortunately, while Hotaru's memory was perfect, he'd never actually seen the text of the CYOA in person, and his past life's memory… wasn't award winning. It was honestly a bit shocking that he remembered the Naruto source material as well as he did.

Immediately turning his eyes back off and curling up in pain for a few minutes, Hotaru had used the time to calm down and think through his options.

The distinct chakra of an active sharingan in Kakashi's left eye was diminished, nearly by half.

Knowing that going off half-cocked would help nobody, Hotaru spent a good ten minutes just focusing on the chakra of the currently bandaged eye. Yes, he could actually detect it draining away now that he was looking for it. At the current rate it would be a normal eyeball by Monday, if it even lasted that long.

---

Chapter 11

---

Chapter 11

Hotaru bit his lip, clearly he'd have to have to go ahead with his plans for Kakashi after all - he could almost certainly still get the mangekyō sharingan template from the drained eye later, but it would be stupid to throw away the guaranteed access to Obito's dimension that Kakashi's eye represented.

What hypotheses he'd formed, from both his study of the regular sharingan, when he manifested it by executing the technique, and from his fairly in depth knowledge of space-time jutsu, led him to believe that kamui would not necessarily target the same dimension if the jutsu was performed by another person.

The jutsu was almost certainly using the sharingan chakra of the user as a default targeting mark, and Kakashi was probably only able to access Obito's dimension because he was using Obito's chakra to target the technique.

There would be some risk, Hotaru didn't really have time to study whatever new patterns would be caused by the Kakashi's period of indolence. He had no idea whether some of the cyclops' friends would visit him.

His best bet, he eventually decided, would be to go tonight; wait until he fell asleep after the final visit from the medic, and go then. That should give him the biggest window to work in, while also minimising the chances of a visitor popping in.

Usually, it being night would nearly guarantee a lack of visitors to a person recovering from trauma, but this was a ninja village, so allowances always had to be made for the 'weird' that infected so many ninja when making plans.

Sending some clones to prepare the library for both an examination and a template reading, modified to target a specific body part, he sat at the table nursing a fresh cup of juice and carefully examining Kakashi's home with the kagura shingan.

Infiltrating the Hatake household without getting caught was not something he'd have liked to have had to do without having spent so much time preparing over the last few months. The man had mundane traps all over the place, and even a couple of fūinjutsu barriers, which Hotaru supposed made sense given his closeness to both the Fourth and Kushina - they'd hardly leave him without an education in the most awesome of shinobi arts.

On top of this, it was in a fairly shinobi dense district, less than a kilometre from his own house, and like his house, in range of the stronger byakugan users in the Hyūga clan compound - though probably out of the range of most of the regular guards.

About an hour and a half later, while watching Kakashi receive his final healing of the day, he got an update back from his clone saying everything was ready, and his eyebrows crept towards his hairline. He'd been wondering why he hadn't heard back yet, but had assumed that he clone had just opted not to bother.

Instead, his clone seemed to have had another stroke of inspiration, much like the clone who'd gone off and designed an entirely new branch of fūinjutsu that manipulated life energy directly.

This clone had, instead of a sealing altar in an isolation area, created an entirely new design.

The altar had been replaced by a bed made with a base of mokuton created wood, from which several curved pillars arched up from each side, almost meeting at the top. It looked somewhat as if the bed was inside a number of wooden rings. The bed itself was formed with kōton (steel release), and had intricate channels carved into it, such that the channels would be directly below the primary chakra pathways were a man of Kakashi's stature to be placed upon it. At the location of each of the eight gates was a circle about the size of Hotaru's fist.

The channels had each been filled with liquid Gelel, drawn from the vein and then dried into its Amber form with ninjutsu. Finally the bed's surface had been smoothed and the entire thing covered in fūinjutsu, running off of the channels and up, over the pillars.

The set-up reminded Hotaru somewhat of his past life's memories of an MRI machine, although far less bulky… and far more wooden.

The bed's intended purpose was not merely imaging the body however. The cylinder described by the pillars was the boundary of a barrier jutsu wherein the entire space within could be saturated, at an adjustable intensity, with life energy attuned to a person placed on the table. The bed was further able to keep the patient sedated, and even hold them in temporal stasis if necessary. The clone had even added a monitoring system to sound an alarm and trigger stasis if the patient flatlined.

It was amazing work, a medical ninja of middling skill could fix almost any injury with minimal effort if the patient was on this bed, and while it was complete overkill for what he was doing, he could see why the kage bunshin had gotten side tracked with making it when the idea had struck.

The problem was, as he went over the clone's memory of doing so, he became more and more sure that he, the original, could not have achieved the same feat in that amount of time.

Some of that was new and novel fūinjutsu. The clone had actually managed to include an array that could be tuned to specific illnesses in order to exclude them from being nourished by the field of vitality. It would need to be tuned manually, but a diseased patient could at least, with a little effort, use the table without getting worse. Even if the bed would not be able to cure anyone of disease directly, the patient's empowered immune system, given an un-empowered disease to fight, would more than likely do the job without further help.

The memories of the clone showed thoughts that were too sharp, making jumps in logic that Hotaru struggled to follow. It was… baffling.

'Unless… '

He thought back again over the information he had on his power. The essence did say that it would allow skills to advance beyond what should conventionally be possible. It had given the example of balancing on an illusion, something Hotaru had actually achieved, and more, he'd even managed to walk on a genjutsu he had a clone cast on him, something that only existed in his own mind.

'But still, even then this is…'

"Utter BULLSHIT!" He exploded out loud, "I've gotten so good at kage bunshin that I'm actually making clones that are smarter than me?!"

The realisation hit him like a club, if he'd not already been sitting… This, more than anything else it had ever done, had really driven home the utter absurdity of his essence.

'What will I be a hundred years from now? A thousand? I'll never stop growing, becoming more. Will there come a time when I consider normal people to be irrelevant, like the Otsutsuki do?'

He was dragged out of his own introspection by movement with Kakashi. The Medic was leaving.

'At least this one didn't decide to give him a happy ending to his examination.' Hotaru thought wryly.

The previous one had. Hotaru didn't know if there was prior history there, if the nurse was just a bit kinky, or if the man just had that much game that he could pull a kunoichi nurse even while laid up with a swollen face. It wasn't really his business anyway though, so he put it out of his mind, instead making last minute checks for any changes to the traps again while Kakashi was falling asleep.

'OK, nice and easy, in and out. At least he didn't decide to keep the dogs summoned.'

Kakashi had actually been far more difficult to tag for the hiraishin than Anko, it would have been weird to just go up and try to touch him, so he'd instead taken advantage of his known habits, sneaking in to Kakashi's preferred bookshop and tagging all the copies of the latest Icha Icha book to come out before it hit the shelves on the night before the release date.

As such, he'd had a marker on Kakashi for a good eighteen months, although soon it'd only be good to reach his house, as posters had recently gone up for another sequel. Hotaru personally thought that the man desperately needed to diversify his reading tastes; one book on repeat for *eighteen months?*

Currently, the marked book was on his bedside table, which was about as perfect as things could get. The branch members on guard at the Hyūga compound were fairly ideal tonight fortunately, one of them was among the most frequent to activate his byakugan, but he had a very short range, not even reaching Hotaru's house, the other woman actually did have the range to cover both his, and Kakashi's house, but was an infrequent activator, and tended to only leave it on for about thirty seconds, which likely indicated she mainly focused around the Hyūga grounds.

Of course, it being night, movement and chakra use would stand out more than usual, so he'd still wait until after her next activation to go in.

There it was. He should have about twenty minutes, but he'd shoot for fifteen to be safe. He took one last quick look, and confirmed that most of Kakashi's known associates were either in bed or out of the village. Seeing he was all clear, he pinged his clones a go signal and made his way to the library, watching them perform a repeat of last week's kidnapping of Anko, though notably this time dancing around a few senbon launching traps that surrounded the bed.

'Hmmm, neither medic had a problem with those, does he have some easy way to disable them? I'll have to find some reason to ask someday, for curiosity's sake if nothing else.'

When he got into the library, he found the clones had wasted no time and had already begun the templating process. A mess of black seals covered Kakashi's bandages, focusing the slightly modified main array on just the eye.

When the process completed, he directed the clones to place the jōnin on the bed, and then instructed most of them to begin going over the mangekyō template, carefully making sure that the clone who'd invented the medical bed was on the analysis team.

Hotaru approaches Kakashi. "Alright, let's see what's wrong with your eye." He said to the soundly sleeping man.

'Byakugan.'

Fortunately there were no issues using it in this small space.

Immediately, the difference from the normal sharingan stood out, there was a static pool of chakra in the front of the eyeball, almost like a lens. Which was strange considering the mangekyō wasn't actually active now that he thought about it.

But that wasn't actually the issue he was looking for, he could work that out from the template later. He focused on tracing the chakra leaking out of it, it was coming from the connection between the chakra pathways leaving the eye and the pathways in Kakashi's head.

"Is there some kind of rupture in the chakra pathway? I didn't even know that could happen." One of the two clones he'd kept with him said.

"No, wait! Look!" the second said excitedly, "if you really focus you can see a second really narrow chakra pathway that's running so close to the main path it's nearly invisible."

Hotaru focused in close, and sure enough, there was a tiny pathway leaking chakra. He traced it back through the eye and found all of the sharingan chakra contained in the eye was inside that pathway, except for the lense-like cloud of it at the front, which was actually seeped into the flesh itself.

Notably, both ends of the pathway had been severed and had healed over strangely, pinched closed almost, never having been reconnected properly during the transplant surgery. Probably because the medic had no idea they were there.

Hotaru focused on the eye of his clone, and sure enough, he found the same pathway there in his own eyes, though it only trickled a tiny amount of chakra.

"Prime!" The bed-making clone called out, "we're done looking over the template."

"What? Already?!" He asked in shock.

The clone winced. "Yeah, bad news. The template is almost completely the same as Sasuke's, there's still that scrambled bit, which is still nonsense, but is different from his, but nothing extra about the mangekyō."

Hotaru's mind whirled. The sharingan technique he already had was complete. But he'd been unable to activate the mangekyō with it, or even find anything in the technique that would account for it. The entire technique, all the way to the mangekyō was apparently just the use of that special chakra. But how was it different?

The lens. He looked back at Kakashi's eye. That was the only difference. He turned his head to the clone next to him, sending out an update to all of the clones to share his thoughts. "Use the jutsu to activate the sharingan," he said.

Realising he'd gotten distracted, he went back to Kakashi. It looked as if the reason it was leaking was that the swelling around the eye had put enough pressure on it to squeeze open the pinched closed end of that little pathway, and it was leaking into Kakashi's body. Normally this wouldn't be an issue, he could just use an artificial fūinjutsu pathway to reconnect the pathway at the other end, except unlike an Uchiha, Kakashi couldn't replenish it with new sharingan chakra.

There was nothing for it, a seal on Kakashi would likely be noticed anyway. He'd have to extract the leaking chakra, and save it in a scroll. He could replicate it with a chakra conversion formula and find some excuse to return it later. He'd have plenty of time to think about it when he wasn't under pressure to return the man before he was noticed. In the worst case scenario he could just kidnap him again once the swelling was gone and refill the eye when it wouldn't drain.

"I think I've worked out the rest of it," his brainy clone said, drawing his attention, "and I think I figured out the eternal mangekyō too."

Hotaru instructed the other clone to seal enough of the chakra leaking from the eye to use as a base for replication. "Go on…" he said to the Essence improved clone.

"Putting sharingan chakra in the smaller pathway activates the technique, and the sharingan chakra in the main pathway powers it efficiently, like optimised fuel. But when the Uchiha experience loss, awakening the mangekyō sends a huge surge of the special chakra. Enough that it over pressurises the smaller chakra pathway and it spills out into the eye in way larger quantities than normal."

"Forming the lens of chakra." Hotaru nodded. "So then what about the eternal mangekyō?"

The clone was quiet a moment, "What if," he asked slowly, "it wasn't receiving Izuna's or Itachi's eyes that awakened the eternal mangekyō in Madara and Sasuke at all? What if they simply drew a mistaken conclusion based on faulty observation?"

Hotaru pondered the question, then raised an eyebrow as he realised what the clone was getting at. "You think it wasn't getting another pair of mangekyō sharingan that did it, but the act of the transplant itself?"

The clone nodded. "It's fairly likely that no one outside of a Hyūga knows that pathway is separate from the main one. Tsunade's mystic palm technique doesn't seem to have the resolution to see it, it's focussed on the physical. It can look at cells individually, but the way it detects chakra pathways is more like a fuzzy glowing line, and the small pathway pretty much overlaps the primary one. The Uchiha probably don't really stop producing that over-pressure chakra, I think the obstruction is lowering the pressure coming into the eye and preventing further damage, whereas from Kakashi the pressure is so low that it doesn't flow at all, in or out, and the sharingan stays active."

"And Hagoromo never needed the transplant," Hotaru realised, "because he had something the Uchiha don't - the body of an Otsutsuki, regeneration. Any damage he did would have just repaired itself immediately anyway."

"It's done," the clone said, byakugan turned off and sharingan active, a seal now covered its face, absorbing some of the special chakra.

"Alright, let it go."

The clone made a sign and released the stored chakra. Hotaru watched it flood the eyes through his byakugan, flooding into the smaller channel and spilling over into the lenses. The tomoe morphed together, a tiny dot forming where the pupil would normally be, with a thin, empty ring around it, much larger in circumference than a mangekyō would normally have, and three tiny blades extended toward the edges of the iris.

And then the flood ended, and the normal sharingan was back.

"Increase the chakra flow to the eyes." Hotaru ordered.

The clone did so, and the eye morphed back into the mangekyō. "Hmm, the amount of chakra in the activation pathway hasn't changed much… so the change to mangekyō is caused by increased flow in the main channel, but it needs both the main technique activated in the smaller channel and the chakra lenses in the front of the eye."

"I've got some techniques here Prime, it's almost like I'm reading them, but they aren't the ones we know about."

"Probably our own version of the mangekyō, we are ultimately descended from Hagoromo too. That scrambled area in the template must be the technique information compressed in some way that the chakra lens in the mangekyō helps decode. What are the techniques?"

"It's called 'Tamanoya' in both eyes, and it seems to manipulate momentum. Left eye locks something in place, the right eye locks the speed and direction something is moving in."

"Give it a try," He formed a little block of wood in his hand with some mokuton and tossed it into the air. The design in the clone's eye spun and the block froze in place.

Hotaru hopped up and landed on the frozen block. "Huh. Cool." he looked at the clone. "No bleeding?"

"We regenerate, fast," Brainy clone reminded, "We'd be in the same situation as Hagoromo."

"Right," he nodded.

"If you guys are done playing around with the mangekyō," the clone working on Kakashi chimed in dryly, "He's ready to go back. There's only a tiny bit of sharingan chakra left. It'll be down to traces by morning. His swelling has gone down by about a third while he was in the regeneration field though, so his recovery will be done a little sooner."

"Right!" Hotaru blushed at getting distracted again. 'At least the only people who know are all me.' "I'll go find an opening. Take him back when I give the all clear." He hurried from the room, dismissing the extra clones, and leaving just Brainy, the sharingan clone and the clone with Kakashi.

He'd run overtime, twenty minutes was nearly up. He decided it wasn't worth the risk of moving now and getting caught moving around suspiciously in Kakashi's house, instead choosing to wait tensely until the Hyūga woman had run her byakugan again. With nothing moving in the house to draw attention, the woman did as he hoped she would and flashed a brief scan of the Hyūga grounds.

He watched her for a while afterwards, but she made no indication of having noticed anything. Turning back to the book she was reading without raising any kind of alarm. Hotaru gave the signal.

He was pleased to see the insertion go off without a hitch through his kagura shingan, but less pleased when the clone took a half minute longer than necessary because it decided to examine the traps around the bed.

When he got back into the library he smacked the clone hard enough to dispel it. Naturally that meant he got to experience the blow himself, but at least he got the satisfaction of popping it.

"… Huh, that sneaky son of a bitch!" The senbon traps weren't actually armed, they were just rigged to look like they were armed. No wonder the medics had no problems with them.

It was actually pretty clever when you thought about it - a piddly little senbon trap wouldn't have much chance of actually hitting a ninja worth sending at someone of Kakashi's level, but a ninja of that level would notice the trap and be slowed down moving around it, just as Hotaru had been earlier that night, giving Kakashi more time to wake up and prepare.

Kakashi had simply not counted on someone both bypassing the more serious fūinjutsu detection fūinjutsu barriers with a space-time technique and having a jutsu like mujin meisei that rendered them both invisible and entirely suppressed their chakra from normal senses. The jōnin couldn't even hear him, since Hotaru's mundane stealth was at the level where he was habitually completely silent.

Hotaru looked at his remaining clones. The clone running the sharingan had activated the byakugan in conjunction and was looking at the still hanging block of wood in wonder. His eyes now the shimmering blue glow of his byakugan with the pattern of his mangekyō, less the dot in the centre, slowly rotating on it.

"It's unreal!" it quietly exclaimed. "There aren't really any words for this. Everything is so clear. Even the chakra, it has the precise resolution of the byakugan, but that only shows where the chakra is; I get so much more detail from the mangekyō sharingan. It's almost as if I can read the intention imprinted in the spiritual side of the chakra."

"That sounds useful. Do you think you could use it to break down other mangekyō jutsu like Kamui?"

"Oh definitely. I've already got a decent idea how Tamanoya works by contrasting the way the chakra forms and what I can read with the byaku-sharingan. We'll have to replicate enough of Obito's chakra to use Kamui a couple of times but we can definitely work it out."

"We are not calling it that." Hotaru said flatly.

The clone shrugged and grinned. "I keep imagining our dour-faced Neji with a pair of contacts. It's funny."

Hotaru grinned, that was funny. "We still aren't calling it that." Then he sighed, "Still, perfectly replicating someone's chakra from a sample isn't fast, especially with such a small sample. Getting that much will take months."

"We won't need that much." his Essence buffed clone said from a table he'd unsealed from the wall, he'd been pouring over the sharingan template. "I've been thinking about the pattern of the mangekyō. It changes when it's transplanted. It's probably because the original mangekyō chakra was still in the lenses. I think if we add other people's sharingan chakra to the chakra lenses, or possibly the activation chakra we can also read their jutsu from that chakra."

"Hmm, we could make enough of Obito's chakra to test both of those theories this weekend." Hotaru mused. "Alright, let's go with that. We'll install the kekkei genkai tomorrow morning as we originally planned, and we should be good to test the theory by Sunday night, or Monday at the latest. Assuming that it works we could kill the mummy on schedule, hopefully before he feels threatened by a trained jinchūriki loyal to the Third and tries something stupid."

"And we add a flow rate limiter formula to the small channel in case we ever actually trigger the mangekyō. I know we regenerate anyway, but the idea of damaging ourselves when we don't have to just because we heal doesn't sit right." the sharingan clone added, getting nods of agreement from the other two.

The clone released the sharingan jutsu and popped. Hotaru closed his eyes to process the memory of having both the byakugan and sharingan on at the same time. It really was incredible how much information they offered from even this small room alone.

"Before I dismiss you too and head to bed, we should go around and make the house a little more friendly for living without chakra. We'll still need to give Naruko cooking lessons again on Sunday."

"Good idea… Maybe some small appliances with a basic chakra reservoir to help with the chores too?"

"Mm. Sounds good, let's get to it then."

---

Chapter 12

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Chapter 12

Hatake Kakashi stared listlessly across the table, not really even seeing the long-cooled and half-eaten bowl of miso soup he'd prepared half-heartedly for breakfast.

Gone. It was gone. Obito's gift was gone. He'd failed, again. The thought ran in an endless loop that filled him with despair.

The sharingan had been a rock that had kept him going through all of the death he'd dealt over the years, all of his lost comrades. The belief that Obito could see him protecting the village from the pure world had kept pulling him forward.

He'd noticed immediately, of course, when he woke up and his covered eye was no longer draining his chakra. He'd not really realised just how much it was consuming, even in its covered state. The sensation of no longer having a good quarter of his chakra generation devoted to maintaining the eye was absolutely unmissable, and just as absolutely terrifying.

He'd actually checked himself back into the hospital. He'd been there a full day, they'd run test after test, even checking that the eye's DNA belonged to an Uchiha to confirm it somehow hadn't been switched out (They'd not had a record of Obito's DNA specifically on file), and it wasn't until they'd given in and hired a Hyūga to look at the issue that they'd discovered the problem.

The Hyūga had peered at him for about a minute and then informed them that the swelling had opened the 'minor chakra pathway' along the optical nerve, and the chakra sustaining the eyes activated state had dispersed into his chakra system.

The medics had looked at him blankly, and been informed that there was an extra pathway in the eye they hadn't known about, the branching paths in the eye having appeared to their scans to come from, and return to, the major pathway.

Bitterly Kakashi had wondered if, had the Hyūga elders pulled the sticks from their collective asses and allowed Hyūga to serve as medics at the hospital, he would still have Obito's gift. As it was, the revelation that there could be chakra pathways they couldn't see had the staff buzzing, there'd no doubt be a few more missions heading the Hyūga's way to verify or correct their current maps of the chakra system.

He pushed away from the table, and once again made his way to the memorial rock for the third day in a row. It was raining heavily today, but Kakashi didn't care. It fit his mood perfectly, and the reduced visibility detracted somewhat from the strangeness of seeing the village in stereo without the sharingan active.

It was a little weird having proper depth perception again. The view through the Sharingan was different enough from his normal vision that both eyes didn't really work together like that properly - although the enhanced perception of the sharingan more than compensated in its own way.

He stood there, unmoving and with bowed head before the memorial for an unknown length of time, utterly drenched in water. Despite the fact that he was subconsciously slowing the loss of his body heat with chakra, the constant flow of chilled water began to leech the warmth from his flesh, and a chill began to set in.

He was startled out of his stupor when he saw a golden glow and heard the sound of something stabbing into the ground nearby. Glowing golden chains of chakra burst from the earth, quickly forming the frame of a dome which filled in with a blue barrier and cutting off the rain over a circle of earth around him and the stone.

Kakashi's muscles tensed to launch him away on reflex, but he overrode them as he recognised the technique, instead only stumbling a few steps back.

"This is… Kushina-sama's!"

His head snapped down at a pulse of chakra washing over him to see a red haired boy with golden chains coming from his back and spearing into the ground beside him; strangely he was completely dry. He was crouched in front of the stone with his hand on the ground, a seal had spread from his palm. Next to him lay a bouquet of flowers.

All of the rain water inside the barrier, including the water soaking Kakashi withdrew slowly floated into the air coming together into streams which swirled into the seal as if flowing down a drain.

The boy, clearly Uzumaki Honoka's son - although he was blanking on the boy's name, picked up his bouquet and placed it at the foot of the monument. Kakashi let him pay his respects and then spoke up.

"That's some pretty impressive fūinjutsu for a kid your age. You're Honoka's son right?"

"Yes, Uzumaki Hotaru, pleased to meet you." the boy bowed formally, "You're Gai-san's eternally hip and cool rival Hatake Kakashi, yes? He mentions you fairly frequently."

Kakashi snorted. Of course he did. "I think he might have mentioned you once or twice in passing too. Sorry, I wasn't really listening at the time." he said lazily.

He was, he just hadn't got much useful information out of it. The boy was 'Youthful' apparently. Which if his Gai-speak hadn't failed him meant he trained diligently. If he was already far enough along in his fūinjutsu to perform inkless sealing he obviously studied just as hard.

Hotaru laughed, "Yeah, I get it, he can be a bit much, still his chakra feels really sincere, and he's really helped improve my taijutsu."

Kakashi smiled. "Your parents would have been proud of you for training enough to catch Gai's attention, I think." He reached out and ruffled the boy's hair, "But I don't think they'd appreciate you coming out to visit them when it's raining like this, you need to look out for your health."

The look Hotaru levelled at him was so flat that Kakashi felt a bit sheepish, realising too late that he was in no position to be lecturing someone for that particular failing right now.

Hotaru turned back to stare at the monument.

"Well, I was minding my own business at home, just practising my clan's chakra sensing technique when I happened to sense someone standing out here in the rain for a long time." Hotaru said nonchalantly, "This person's chakra was really dark; I don't think they were in a good place… And, well, I was a bit worried they might do something… drastic."

Kakashi's eyes widened, as he realised what the boy was getting at, but he continued before he could respond.

"So I thought that, seeing as they were standing at the KIA memorial, they might have just lost someone, and I decided it might be a good time to visit mum and dad… and maybe give that person someone to talk to while I was there."

Kakashi stared at the boy who was seemingly studying the names on the stone carefully, then sighed, pasted a smile on his face and ruffled Hotaru's head again.

"You're a good kid. Thanks for trying to look out for me, but I'll be OK."

Hotaru looked up at him and said innocently, "Did you know Hatake-san, that a good sensor can tell when people are lying by the way their chakra fluctuates?"

Kakashi grimaced behind the mask and said nothing. 'I'm not really fine at all though, am I? I didn't fool Gai either, I guess he knows me too well.'

Finally, "I did know. I hadn't thought you were quite that far along," he blew out a breath inside his mask, "I suppose I should have though; you had just said you sensed my emotions from your home."

"Why not talk about it a bit? It helps. When my parents died the Academy sent me to a Yamanaka therapist, and she mostly just had me tell her stories about good times I remembered with them. It made me feel a little bit better. I bet you have a few good stories about your friend?"

Kakashi's first instinct was to decline, but looking at the earnest expression on the boy's face he hesitated, then gave a wry chuckle. 'He did come all the way out here in the rain to help me, I guess I can humour him a little.'

"Heh… Alright then." He looked back at the monument.

"Their names were Uchiha Obito and Nohara Rin. We were put on team seven together out of the Academy under Namikaze Minato. Obito was… Brash, untalented and perpetually late. He always wore goggles to protect his eyes, even though he hadn't awakened his sharingan yet. But he was the glue that held the team together… "

Hotaru stood there listening as Kakashi talked about a prank Obito had tried to play on him, only to have it catch Rin instead and the scolding he'd gotten from the girl he'd had a huge crush on.

From there he moved into another story, and another, until before he realised it he'd been talking for the better part of an hour; stories about his friends just seeming to pour out of somewhere he'd locked away inside himself, like a damn that had found a crack to leak through.

It was a scratching in his throat that brought him back to the present; he wasn't really used to talking for that long. He'd just finished the last story and considered stopping there, but… He was actually surprised to find that he did feel a little better.

He looked at the rock. He'd failed the last few teams they'd tried to pass off on him due to their abysmal teamwork. Maybe he could give one last story and teach the boy a lesson that he'd learned too late.

"One last story I think, and we'll call it a day. It was my first mission as a jonin. The land of Earth had was invading in the final days of the war, and our team had been instructed to destroy a crossing point at Kannabi Bridge to make things harder for them." Hotaru nodded, obviously recognising the battle from his history classes.

"Our sensei had gone to give us a distraction, while our team was tasked with the bridge's destruction, but on the way there, Rin was captured by enemy forces." There was a little hiss of breath, but Hotaru held his tongue as Kakashi spoke. "I tried to continue the mission," he said ashamedly, then smirked "but Obito wouldn't have it, he punched me in the face and told me that while it's true that ninja who break the rules and regulations are scum, a ninja who abandoned his comrades was worse than scum.

He left me behind to go search for Rin, and by the time I caught up to him, it was just in time to save him from a ninja that was about to take him by surprise. That ninja was a stealth specialist with an invisibility jutsu, and in the fight I lost my left eye. Fortunately for us though, Obito's sharingan awoke and he was able to find the enemy and kill him.

When we found Rin she was inside a cave, and the other Iwa shinobi dropped the roof on our heads. Obito threw me out of the way, and got crushed by a boulder in my place. His last request was for Rin to transplant his sharingan to replace my lost eye. I promised to show him the future through that eye."

Kakashi brought his hand up to touch a fresh scar over his eye, next to the original. This one was shallower than the first however, nicking his eyebrow, but skipping the actual eyelid before continuing down his cheek. He'd nearly managed the dodge.

"On my last mission, I took an injury and lost Obito's sharingan. Just one more failure to add to the list," he said the last part bitterly under his breath.

Hotaru peered up at the scar. "It doesn't look like the cut actually got your eye though? Did something go wrong when you got healed?"

Kakashi shook his head, "The cut got infected, the swelling did something to the chakra network and the chakra drained out of the eye."

"Oh… but, that's still Obito's eye then, right? You can still keep your promise to show him the future through it, that's not so bad."

Kakashi rocked back on his heels. Hotaru was right, he'd been so focused on the loss of the sharingan that he hadn't considered that he was still using Obito's eye. He felt the crushing weight of his own failure lifting a little.

Hotaru tilted his head. "You said the chakra drained out of it?" he said slowly. "I might have an idea."

"Oh?"

"Before I get your hopes up, I have a bit of an interest in medical jutsu, and I designed a seal to perform a medical scan, do you mind if I have a look to see if my idea is feasible?" Hotaru made a dozen signs and then traced his finger around his right hand, seals spreading over it until it looked almost like he was wearing a black glove. A little chakra run through it caused a shimmering, nearly transparent blue-white shimmer above the palm.

Kakashi considered it for a little while. What would it hurt? This was definitely the real Hotaru, the chakra chains proved that, and he was a little interested in the seal. He designed it himself? The Hokage would probably like to know about it, and he could make a better report after seeing it in action. He knelt down, putting himself level with Hotaru's shorter height.

"Alright, go ahead." He waited patiently while Hotaru covered his eye with the glowing palm. His brow creased with concentration for a few minutes before he smiled and pulled his hand away.

He made a few more signs, this time for a simple genjutsu illusion, and Kakashi raised one eyebrow when a cross-section of a simplified eye including chakra network appeared floating in front of him, as big as his head.

"Okay, from what I can see there's a second chakra path in there that isn't shown in any of the anatomy books I've read." A section of the network lit up in red. "I can detect trace amounts of weird chakra in there, but no real chakra flow, so I assume that was where Obito's chakra was."

"That tracks with what the Hyūga we called in told me," Kakashi nodded. "We're going to have to arrange for that seal to be put into use at the hospital. The doctors there weren't able to detect the smaller pathway."

"It's pretty complicated," Hotaru hedged, then perked up a bit and muttered, "Perhaps some kind of glove, with a summoning built in in case of theft…"

Kakashi had a flash of amused pride that he was already thinking of securing the seal.

He shook his head. "I'll think on that later, anyway, I'm almost positive I could use a seal to reactivate that sharingan by restricting the flow though those pathways again and injecting the chakra directly into them. The catch is, I think it would need a donation of the same kind of chakra that was in the eye to begin with, and the only Uchiha left in the village is Sasuke who-"

"Hasn't awoken his sharingan yet." Kakashi finished for him, getting a nod.

Kakashi felt a surge of hope. There was no way to tell when Sasuke would awaken his eyes, but nearly all Uchiha did so by their middle teens. "So it could be next week, or five years from now." He mused.

"Maybe you could look at this as an opportunity?" Hotaru suggested. "Train and get stronger without the sharingan so that when you get it back you'll be even stronger?"

"Haha, I can see why Gai likes you; the first thing he said when he visited was that I'd just need to train more to keep up with him."

"I might have an idea there too, if you're interested?" Hotaru said.

"Hmm, why not? You're two for two so far on ideas today."

"You use lightning right? I assume you can use other elements?" Kakashi nodded, so Hotaru held up one finger and gathered a little whirl of wind chakra on its tip. "So I was experimenting a little while ago, we'd just learned about elemental combination kekkei genkai and I couldn't see why something like that would need a bloodline, I was trying to combine fire and wind, just to prove that I could." Hotaru let the wind disperse, and lit a little flame over the same finger.

"Turns out combination really is as hard as they say it is, but while I was experimenting I discovered something else by accident; it's not as strong, but it's way easier and it's still better than the basic element." He let the flame go before bringing back the swirl of wind. "If you take one element, and transform that chakra that's already been transformed once into another element, it changes the final result." He changed the wind to fire, this time without letting go of the wind first. A tiny tongue of blue flame danced above his finger, and even from where he stood more than a metre away Kakashi could feel the heat radiating from it, driving away the chill in the air.

"I call it stacking. This is katon stacked on fūton. I'm not sure what would go best with lighting, but I'm betting that this is the secret behind the third Raikage's black lightning jutsu. Probably with yin release as a base, given the colour."

Kakashi stared at the flame in fascination, his mind whirling through the ramifications of the technique and the possibilities it opened up. The Hokage would definitely want to know about this, if only to expand his own repertoire.

"Thank you for sharing this with me, Hotaru-kun, but you should probably keep this sort of thing to yourself in the future, this could be a powerful advantage. We don't want ninjas from other villages learning about it."

"Yeah," Hotaru sighed, "I figure that attitude is probably why everyone doesn't already know about this; it's not that hard, there's no way I'm the first person to discover it."

Kakashi thought back over some of the stranger kekkei genkai he'd seen over his career, like taitonTyphoon release and deitonMud release, the ones that just didn't seem powerful enough to be included in the same kind of category as overwhelmingly powerful elements like shakutonScorch release or mokutonWood release.

"No, I suspect you're right about that." He said at last, and the two fell into an easy contemplative silence for a little while.

"Anyway, it was nice meeting you in person." Hotaru said at last, "I'm gonna get back to my training - the best way I have to make sure I don't see any more precious people's names on that monument is get strong enough that nobody will dare harm my friends." He lifted the hood of his jumper onto his head.

Kakashi shot him a worried look. "Don't train yourself so much that you burn out. It never ends well."

"Don't worry, I have scheduled rest days!" Hotaru gave him a thumbs up, then looked up at the rain beating down on the blue dome above them. "You're going to lose the barrier when I go…"

"Thanks for worrying, but I can handle some rain."

"I guess I'll see you around then, bye."

"Bye then." Kakashi watched the boy walk through the sheet of water pouring off the edges of the barrier into the downpour, chains extending further from his back as he walked away.

Now that he was paying attention he could see the water bouncing off an invisible surface a half cm above his clothes. 'That's a useful seal. I think Kushina taught me something like that, I might have to brush up on my fūinjutsu and put it on my clothes now that I don't have the sharingan draining my chakra constantly.' It wouldn't be too useful on missions where it was important to keep as much chakra available as possible, but it would be fine for around the village.

Abruptly the chain leading into the curtain of rain began dissolving like a fuse burning away from where it had been cut off at the source, and a moment later he was drenched all over again.

In a better headspace now than he was earlier in the day he decided not to stick around any longer and vanished in a shunshin.

---

Hotaru fist pumped as he finally got the jutsu down and the thrown kunai clattered to the floor halfway to his target. He'd been playing with the principles he'd learned from Tamanoya since he unlocked the Sharingan, its complementary Genjutsu specialisation and the mangekyo on Saturday.

This was a new jutsu he'd created based on those principles and was deployed in the same fashion; through targeting the focal point of his vision. Instead of fixing the velocity of the object it was used on, this jutsu instead robbed it of velocity entirely meaning that subjects would just stop instantly in mid-air and fall to the ground under gravity instead of hanging fixed in place.

He decided not to give it a new name, it was close enough to Tamanoya that he could just stick that entire branch of techniques under the same name.

On the other side of the room, his clone was preparing for the first attempt at using Kamui without Obito's chakra. Unfortunately adding it to the chakra lenses in (a clones) sharingan hadn't done anything, but he'd hit paydirt when he filled the activation channels with it.

With his own chakra in the lenses and Obito's in the activation channels the design of his mangekyo had changed slightly, gaining small tails that swept back from the blades of his own design, and he'd become able to decipher the information compressed into the chakra; and it was a lot of information.

His clone had used the jutsu a few times to get the hang of the way the chakra needed to be moulded, then he'd spent the past two days reconstructing the entire jutsu from the ground up to ensure he understood its workings.

It had been years since the last time it had taken Hotaru more than an hour to learn a jutsu like this. Kamui was just that complicated. It made the hiraishin look like a simple equation in comparison, although the hiraishin was significantly better designed and far more efficient. The sheer flexibility of the Kamui was worth the extra effort though.

He didn't know for sure if the CYOA would count him just casting the jutsu as acquisition, but he'd be trying the jutsu as it was first just in case. Either way he'd be spending the next few weeks redesigning it - it could be made quite a bit more efficient with a little effort, and he fully intended to integrate a number of elements from the Hiraishin which were superior; like the linear transport model it used which was orders of magnitude faster than the spiral based model used by kamui.

The last five clones that attempted the jutsu had messed up and popped when only a part of them was transported; this one however, disappeared in a swirl. Half a minute later it came back, eyes wide. "You gotta see this!" he said, and burst into smoke.

Hotaru's eyes widened and he carefully cast the jutsu himself, vanishing in a disorienting swirl.

'Ugh, yeah, definitely fixing that.' He swayed a little bit on arrival and then looked around. "Woah!" he said softly to himself. The cold sensation of a notification hit him as he stared out across the dimension. 'Guess that answers that question. Still, I theorised as much, but I hadn't realised how different this place would be.'

He stood in a vast black plane, stretching as far as the eye could see, there were no stars in the sky, nor was there any other source of light, yet the whole place was lit by a kind of ambient glow that cast no shadows. The ground was, at first glance, an endless still lake, appearing like a glossy black mirror in the total absence of ripples. From the surface of the lake protruded occasional pillars of what looked like polished onyx, all perfect hexagons and completely uniform in size, about a metre across.

While the pillars were uniform in dimension, they were disparate in both placement and height. They jutted from the surface sporadically, some on their own, others in small groups. Very occasionally there'd be a few dozen making a kind of landmass. Their height was likewise random. Some extended only a few cm above the waterline, others were as much as two metres high. The only pattern Hotaru could see was that no two pillars of the same height were placed next to each other.

He knelt down and scooped a hand through the water. It was only about a half cm deep, below it was a loose sand of polished onyx. He lifted a handful to look at and raised a brow. The sand was composed entirely of identical regular dodecahedrons and icosahedrons. The dodecahedrons were about a half cm across, the icosahedrons perhaps half that, but were twice as common. A pulse of chakra released into the ground showed that the sand/water mix extended all the way down out of his detection range of at least a few kilometres.

He turned around to look at the only source of sound in his world: a few hundred pillars forming a kind of gradual slope in the shape of a ring, the borders of a pond that bubbled with a fairly powerful spring in the centre, water cascading over the edges and down the stepped, irregular slope like some kind of fountain.

'My inner world is weird… Although I suppose it's not really worse than Obito's cube-scape.'

Still, weird landscape aside. He'd done it. With this he'd have a place where he could really let go and train to his heart's content. He wondered how the dimension came into being; it felt fully stable, not like the proto dimension created by a sealing scroll, and yet it also felt personal - as if he was connected to it in some manner. Was it some kind of soulscape? Did everyone have one just waiting for an appropriate jutsu to access it? A happy buzz filled him, 'So much data to discover!'

On a whim he clapped his hands together and pumped chakra into a mokuton jutsu. From the ground in front of him erupted a huge tree, it kept growing and growing as he kept adding chakra until, had there been clouds, it would have scraped the bottom of them.

He giggled. 'This is going to be so much fun! I can use whatever jutsu I want! Now… What to try out next…?'

---

Chapter 13

---

Chapter 13

Shimura Danzo glared, not for the first time, down at the reports his Root had compiled in his absence. The village had nearly lost its only actively in service Sharingan, and only 'nearly' because Hatake had reported to Hiruzen that he'd been promised a reactivation once Uchiha Sasuke had awakened his own.

Never once did the thought of offering some chakra from his own stash of sharingan eyes enter the mind of the bandaged old man known as the 'Darkness of Shinobi'. Power in Konoha was best kept in his control after all. His single uncovered eye tracked to the next report.

Hatake had kicked out his spies and secured the room with fūinjutsu for the latter half of his report, but considering that Hatake and Hiruzen had both been seen later by his agents, experimenting with strangely coloured and uncommonly powerful variations on existing jutsu, he could guess the general gist of what Hatake had wanted to report.

A new method of empowering jutsu, one that he had no access to. He scowled. He'd need to find a way to convince Hiruzen to share it with him. Once he was Hokage, it could be used to raise the village to unheard of heights of power and stability.

He just had to avoid the need to use Shisui's eye again. There were barely any uses left in it, and he had no other eyes capable of the Kotoamatsukami, having already used up the eye of Shisui's father. He still needed to save at least one use for the Daimyo, to convince him to affirm himself as the new Hokage once Hiruzen no longer wore the hat.

He took a moment to curse those bitches that had nearly brow beaten Hiruzen into letting them care for the weapon. He'd needed to waste three extra uses of the eye to make sure the girl was kept vulnerable. He'd had to spend entirely too many of the eye's limited uses towards that goal; he'd much rather spend them on his trips to the capitol, where they could be used to manoeuvre the political landscape to his liking, but he needed it to latch on to him when he was ready to finally acquire it.

That was why he'd used up the last of Uchiha Shuzen's Kotoamatsukami, securing its isolation following the Kyūbi attack; First by preventing Hiruzen from giving it to Jiraiya, allowing him to spread rumours to ensure it wouldn't build any loyalty to someone else; then to the otherwise kindly matron who'd run the orphanage, and the teachers of its first ninja academy class, to ensure that the foundation it would need to get any use out of later classes was gutted. He could teach it himself, best it be kept weak until it was in the hands of its rightful wielder.

Then they'd come along. Uzumaki Honoka and Uchiha Mikoto, Kushina's two closest friends; and unlike Jiraiya, they weren't giving up after a single night of ranting at the Hokage. They kept bringing the subject up again, and again, until Hiruzen had started to sway.

He'd been forced to use the eye another three times over the following few months to get them to drop the idea, and to reaffirm Hiruzen's conviction that nobody should be allowed to adopt Uzumaki Naruko.

And then the bitches had gone and died, wasting the last uses of his precious jutsu. Admittedly Mikoto had been his doing, but the Uzumaki had gone and gotten herself killed and cost the village a valuable seal master.

Naturally he'd used his new eye, taken from Shisui to ensure the boy was allowed to live on his own, where he would be allowed to keep his family's library in a place that it could be easily acquired by his Root agents. But circumstances had stymied him at every turn: his men had been unable to even locate the defences of the fabled sealing knowledge, let alone breach them and find the library. All they'd accomplished with repeated break-ins was to anger the Uzumaki scion, their next, and last, visit flash frying two of his better agents.

To make matters worse, he'd then attempted to use Kotoamatsukami on the boy from a distance to make him open his clan archive, only for the jutsu to slide off of some kind of anti-genjutsu seal without the boy apparently even noticing. Then Hiruzen had cracked down on the boy's security while the eye was on cool down and he'd been forced to let it go. For the time being.

Following what seemed to be a trend for that family, he'd returned to Konoha a few days ago to find Uzumaki Hotaru had taken his distant cousin under his wing, and the weapon's skills were improving with such terrifying rapidity that if he was to allow it to graduate in three years time in order to acquire it while it was away from the village, as had been the original plan, it would doubtless be too strong for his forces to overcome without catastrophic losses.

So the very day after returning he'd increased the watch on the weapon, with instruction to find the best moment to extract it. They hadn't managed yet, as the increased watch had immediately been noticed by Uzumaki Hotaru, and he'd insisted on escorting her home from their training sessions, and had, very deliberately visibly, proceeded to place security seals on every millimetre of her apartment.

Hotaru was on the acquisition list as well of course, but there was no way any of his expendable Root agents would be successful in capturing a sensor with the ability to place explosive tags on contact in the middle of the village without getting caught. Kill him? Yes, but not capture. Not when he could apparently shrug off sharingan level genjutsu. That one would have to wait until the boy started going on missions.

'It might be best to pull back my agents and wait a few weeks for him to drop his guard. Once he stops escorting the weapon she can be taken on her way home at my leisure.' he mused.

Decision made, Danzo reached towards the intercom, pressing the button to speak with his second in command, Yamanaka Fū.

"Fū, gather the upper ranks in the war room, I have new orders to give."

#At once Danzo-sama.#

Danzo sat back in his chair and went over the latest report that had come in again. This one about the concerning growth of a fledgling hidden village in the all but defunct Tsume no KuniThe land of Claws. They'd been attempting to found a hidden village since the end of the third war, during which their former village was destroyed, and much of the country left worse off for being used as a battleground by their two stronger neighbours, Suna and Iwa.

Evidently they'd found a wealthy merchant who liked the idea of becoming a Daimyo enough to hire a sufficient quantity of missing-nin to found a small hidden village. All that was really needed for the title was the loyalty of the country's hidden village, a reasonable number of hired swords to serve as the country's "samurai" (not to be confused with the real samurai from Iron), and at least the begrudging acceptance of the population.

The first two were for sale, the latter could be easily obtained in a country so impoverished by simply using the first two to bring down the rate of banditry and general crime.

Unfortunately for them, putting a hidden village between Suna and Iwa would provide a buffer separating the two villages, increasing the attention Iwa could afford to pay Konoha - who was by far Iwa's most hated enemy due to being the on the losing side of all three great wars, while Konoha had been the winner of all three.

Every other village had been a nominal ally at some point in at least one of the wars. Not so for Iwa. Mostly because, by the time they'd been in a position where allying with them during the third war would be mutually advantageous, everyone had well and truly seen how easily they betrayed their allies in the past two wars.

Danzo didn't anticipate they'd survive a fourth war. Not with the way they'd treated Kumo in the third, who'd been onto their game and given Onoki just enough rope to hang himself with.

If it weren't for Namikaze's glorious massacre at Kannabi Bridge, that would have been Iwa's single hardest loss in the whole war, and would still likely end up as the loss that cut them deepest in the end - nobody was going to ally with them after a three war long history of betrayal after all.

#Danzo-sama, we are gathered in the war room.#

'Yes, I'll have to have their aspiring Daimyo removed.' He mused as he stacked the reports neatly and stood. 'I really need to move the war room closer to my office. I'm not as young as I use-'

The thought cut off as he felt a strange pinching touch to the blind side of his head and his torso, the latter of which immediately ceased as his body went numb, a burning sensation coming from his neck. He couldn't move, he attempted to shout but had no air. Panicking, he tried to activate Izanagi in his right eye only to find that his chakra was cut off. He felt something gripping his hair as the world lurched slightly.

His uncovered eye spun wildly, even as his vision began to go dark at the edges, landing on the mirror on the far wall of his office, placed there so that he could see behind himself in a fit of (clearly justified) shinobi paranoia.

There was nobody else there, just his head, being held up by the hair. A fresh seal sat over his sharingan. Below his head, his body stood, held up by unseen hands, his Izanagi arm floating separately off to the side. Strangely, there was no blood. His robe was opening and something was halting the spread of the reverse four symbols seal, rigged to go off upon his death. That was already trying to activate.

'Oh. Oh ! I'm dying.' That realisation was the last thought of Shimura Danzo, Darkness of Shinobi. He never found out who killed him.

---

Dark, angry thoughts warred with grief within Sarutobi Hiruzen as he stood at the edge a gigantic hole, exposing the innards of a sprawling hidden facility about fifteen kilometres out from the edge of the wall; just far enough out that any Hyūga walking the wall wouldn't see it even if they were looking for it, and just deep enough underground that they wouldn't see it unless they were looking it should one of them decide for some reason to go venture so far from any of the roads leading to the village.

This facility was perfectly placed with full knowledge of the village's security and patrol habits, and the capabilities of the Hyūga. Placed by one of his oldest friends. And he hadn't known about it.

Certainly he had known that Danzo had continued a small portion of his organisation after he'd ordered it shut down, one based out of a small facility within the village borders that the main ANBU forces hadn't bothered to take over like they had the rest of his operation.

Hiruzen had allowed it, though he'd had it carefully watched. His old rival had appeared to content himself with picking up the occasional promising student to train, and serving as his adversarial advisor. The Professor was not, after all, one to surround himself with 'yes men'.

But this… This was… Danzo had been continuing his barbaric training practices this entire time! Fifteen years, at least! Right under his nose, and he'd lied to Hiruzen's face the entire time, all the while working in a way that undermined the peace Hiruzen was trying to build.

He dragged a deep breath and turned to the rather large assembly of high ranking shinobi who'd come with him. His eyes fell with some sympathy on Inoichi, who was glaring furiously at Yamanaka Fū who was kneeling next to the hole awaiting orders, having reported to his desk this morning and informed him about the full scope of Root's operations.

It couldn't be easy to find out one of your family members was a double agent. Although he wasn't working for Konoha's enemies per se, so at least they wouldn't need to execute him. He wouldn't be walking away from this as a jōnin though.

"What a mess." He said tiredly. "Does anyone have any suggestions about what to do with… this:"

He gestured at the jagged hole into the facility. The perfectly spherical void hadn't quite reached high enough to expose the facility from the surface, but it had removed enough support that the last half metre or so of dirt had collapsed into the hole, now littering the floor. In the dead centre of the sphere was a strange stuttering fire. Tongues of flame blasting haphazardly out in a full sphere rather than rising the way normal fire would. It was fairly hot, but the radius of the sphere was such that it was only pleasantly warm this far away. There was a strange shimmer to the air inside too, almost like a mirage, but less wavy and more… jagged.

"Troublesome. If they've all had their tongues sealed the way Fū claims, then we'll need to call Jiraiya-sama back to the village to release them before we can even start on integrating them into the shinobi forces."

"Rehabilitation for that many of Root's drones is going to be a pain, and they'll always be somewhat lacking in social skills if the last batch is anything to go by." Inoichi said.

"Piece of shit, torturing kids." Tsume spat on the ground. "Uzumaki brat might be able to undo the seals without subjecting the village Kunoichi to being spied on in the hot springs, never seen anyone do complex seals that fast 'cept maybe the Yondaime."

"You want to tell a child about Root?" Hiashi asked incredulously.

"Actually, it's not a bad idea." Shikaku mused, one hand scratching his chin while the other supported the elbow. "We don't have to bring him out here, or even tell him anything about how the seals got there. We can just bring one of them into the village to see if he can do it. If he can't, we lose nothing and call Jiraiya. If he can, we bring in groups and he fixes them over a few months. We can set a few hours aside on weekends in a non classified location and just pay him a D rank each day."

"That's probably the best case. We could use the Academy building, set my clan members up in the classrooms and funnel the ones who've been set free in to start working one on one at getting their heads straight. That's gonna take years for the older ones by the way." Inoichi sighed.

"At least we have experience with helping them integrate this time round, and some of our forces have come from the original Root, they should be able to relate to the newer ones." Choza, ever the optimistic voice in a crowd, tried to lift the mood.

"That just means we let this happen twice." Hiashi said with an uncharacteristically fierce scowl.

"There is no use complaining about it now that it has already happened. Why? Because it is our duty to help them as members of our village." Aburame Shibi stated softly. He was especially agitated, not that you could tell from his face or voice, as one of his own clansmen had already been found to be a senior member of Root. His Kikaichu were very restless however, to those who knew what to look for.

"Well said Shibi!" Tsume went to clap him on the back, catching herself at the last moment when she remembered his insects. She settled for a gentle pat on the shoulder, careful not to crush any of his hive, and got a grateful nod back.

"Alright, we have a plan of action." Hiruzen turned to the ANBU commander, "Sweep the building, I want every secret, every bit of paperwork, and each Root agent accounted for, and send a team to the facility we did know about, along with the Shimura clan compound."

Hiruzen fixed Shimura Tenjūrou, newly appointed clan head, with a mild glare. "I trust your clan will be cooperative with the investigation into your uncle?"

"Of course Hokage-sama." he winced, but went on, "I'm afraid Danzo-sama was… not well liked by the majority of the clan, though his supporters were very firm in their approval."

"I see."

Hiruzen sighed sadly. "He wasn't always so… uncompromising, you know? Losing the Second hurt him a great deal. He was never quite the same afterwards."

Tenjūrou nodded, then seeing that the Hokage was finished with him, left with the ANBU commander.

It was Shikaku that broke the silence.

"What do we do about… Whatever that is?"

Hiruzen pulled out his pipe, lit it and took a puff. Being a seal master of no small skill himself, he was aware of the phenomenon. While he didn't quite have the sealing skills of his student or successor, it was a rare individual indeed who reached journeyman level in fūinjutsu without causing this particular phenomenon at least once. Though he had admittedly never heard of one on quite this scale before.

"From what I can gather through the remains here and what little Fū has told us, Danzo had a seal rigged to seal the area around himself into his own body upon his death. Given the dimensions, I'd guess a reversed four symbols seal."

He took another puff while everyone waited on him to continue.

"The phenomenon before you is caused when you mess up a containment seal and cause the vessel to be sealed inside itself."

There was an incredulous silence at that claim.

"He sealed his body, inside, his body?" said Hiashi.

"Well, he tried to. Or rather more likely, he messed up, and that was the result. It causes a little knot in space-time, that fire in the middle is the contents of the seal being converted to energy and vented through the knot as the seal collapses. Given the amount of volume sealed, it wouldn't shock me if that fire lasted a few decades."

"Huh," Shikaku mused, "Pity it's not inside the wall, we could have built a boiler over it and generated electricity for free for the next twenty years or so."

"Heh, old warhawk was always trying to increase the power of the village." Tsume snorted.

That drew a chortle out of everyone, even Hiruzen. "A good one for sure Tsume, but a bit too soon I think. Whatever else he did, Danzo dedicated his life to keeping the village safe. He fought at my side in all three shinobi wars, and was a valuable voice of dissent on the council. It never does one any good to surround oneself with people who agree with you on everything."

"Sorry Hokage-sama."

"No harm done. I'm sure he himself would have gotten a chuckle out of it. He did always enjoy a good pun. Back away from the hole please."

Everyone followed him back away from the edge, where he turned and made a half dozen hand signs before slamming his hands into the ground, which fell away into a slope that led down into the sphere.

"The distortion around the flame is space crinkling and shaking as the knot tries to come undone. It shouldn't be too dangerous, but I've never heard of one this powerful before, so best not to enter it I think."

The old man walked down the ramp, and flew through hand-seals at a blistering pace. Then crouched down at the bottom of the ramp, which stopped right at floor level for what must have been Danzo's office. He touched the inner face of the sphere, right below the ramp, and a line of seals raced around the sphere, connecting at the other side to form a perfect ring on the inside of the cutaway. This was the only available spot to make a full ring, since above and below the floor line, the rooms would break the ring.

"Fūin!" Hiruzen called, exerting his still quite powerful chakra.

A spherical ripple closed in from the boundaries of the sphere, leaving the air still in its wake. When it reached the centre, it popped out of existence, taking the ball of fire with it.

"I learned that one directly from Mito-sama," he reminisced, "I confess that at the time the explanation for how it worked went right over my head. I never did remember to try getting the explanation again once my knowledge of sealing was up to the task. Perhaps Hotaru-kun will be able to dig out a scroll from his library with the explanation on it for me."

Hiruzen looked back up the ramp at the assembled clan heads.

"I'd appreciate it if one or two of you would remain to supervise, I need to be getting back to my desk. The Great Enemy can't be allowed to gain too much ground, and I'm afraid this incident will make it all the stronger."

He got a laugh from everyone at that, as clan heads they all had at least a small idea of what he went through to keep on top of his paperwork.

"Did anyone find any indication that Danzo was killed?" Hiruzen asked as he walked up the ramp.

Hiashi answered. "I can see no signs that a dōton jutsu was used to enter the base. All the entrances were guarded, and the guards were all accounted for."

"No scents other than the people on base at any of the entrances or hallways either." Tsume chipped in.

"Unless an assassin dropped in from directly above Danzo where the ground collapsed, got through two floors without alerting anyone, or letting Fū sense their chakra, and killed him without raising an alarm… I think we have to assume that he died of natural causes. Likely a heart attack, given his age." Hiashi finished.

"If someone did kill him, it looks like they were probably killed by the seal anyway." Shikaku said.

"Good. That's good." The old man breathed a sigh of relief. At least his friend would be able to rest easily.

---

Hotaru flopped back on the grass, watching the clouds with Shika, it was finally done. He, they, were as safe as you really could be in a shinobi village, at last. There would always be external dangers, but Danzo had been the only internal enemy that he had to contend with.

Sure, he would still need to be careful to ensure they didn't think he was a spy or something, but there was no-one else that was truly malicious that he was aware of. Besides Kabuto he supposed, but unlike Danzo who held a position of power, Kabuto was a genin. He might have the strength of a jonin, but Hotaru was confident he could destroy the older boy easily if it came down to an actual fight; and academy student or not, Hotaru was quite frankly just massively more important to the village as a budding seal master, than a genin who had already failed the chunin exams twice.

That meant that he just needed to keep making sure he didn't make anything that Kabuto could smuggle out to Orochimaru for study without adding proper security measures.

Last night felt so… anticlimactic. He'd killed Danzo so very easily - even if he'd withdrawn into Kamui to throw up afterwards - that it almost didn't feel real.

Between his stealth skills, the Mujin Meisei JutsuDustless bewildering cover that had earned the second Tsuchikage the moniker "the Non person" rendering him all but undetectable to anything but a doujutsu, and Kamui, providing the ability to simply appear from thin air behind his target… Danzo had never stood a chance.

Worse, knowledge of how the man had died in the Naruto anime had meant he was aware of the man's entire bag of tricks and trumps. Even his last ditch fail-deadly seal had been prepared for.

He'd simply Kamui'd in with a single clone, invisible and with tanto already out. A single touch to the side of the head had applied a seal to disrupt any attempt to send chakra to Shisui's mangekyo sharingan, a simultaneous touch to the lower back sealed Danzo's chakra use in general. Almost simultaneously, he'd decapitated the man with his other hand, blade edge enhanced with such a minuscule amount of fūton chakra, under such tight control that he could barely even perceive it with his Kagura Shingan.

His skill was such that even such a tiny amount of chakra was enough to make the blade cut flesh and bone like a hot razor through softened butter, almost microscopic little vacuum blades running along the edge like the teeth of a chainsaw at incredible speed.

Even as he was removing Danzo's head, the clone was doing the same with his arm. He'd caught the head by the hair and held the body upright while the clone had delayed the reverse four symbols seal so they could ransack the office.

A little twist to the seal before warping out caused it to self consume the body along with the immediate area, neatly leaving no evidence he'd ever been there.

Hotaru had never even needed to put himself in danger. The only reason he'd gone in himself at all was the feeling that he should make his first kill in person. It felt… disrespectful somehow, to end someone that had unknowingly shaped much of his life remotely.

He didn't know quite how to feel, but it was strangely liberating having the old man gone. Just like that, fate had jumped off the rails and was going cross country, bouncing on every rock and pothole along the way… He might have overextended that metaphor a little.

It was a weight off of his shoulders that he no longer really knew the future. Not really. Sure he had some things to look out for, but there was no way even something like the chūnin exam invasion was going to go the same way now - if it happened at all without an inside collaborator.

For one thing they now had about four to five hundred more active ninja around chunin level than they did yesterday. That was a significant force, even if the quality wasn't quite up to Konoha standards. They could learn the will of fire in time.

The best thing about the old mummies death however was that he could begin to trickle in some improved seals to the ninja forces now, without worrying about them being used against them later.

He had already drawn up a design for the scanning gloves to give to the hospital, a clone was currently out searching shinobi supply stores for appropriate gloves to carry the seal work. He'd designed the security seal with a chakra reservoir that had to be filled before the gloves could be used. If at any point they left the barrier around the village, they'd summon themselves back to a paired box using that chakra. And if they were stolen again before they were recharged? They couldn't be used without first reactivating the security seal.

The healing beds could wait a little while, but he could give the Hokage the same Gelel seal that he'd given Hayate now that he wasn't in danger of being ordered to give one to Danzo.

And most importantly, the improvements his clone had made to that same seal when creating the beds could now be applied to Hayate's own seal. Hopefully ridding him of the bacteria in his lungs at last.

The sound of Naruko chatting happily with his shopping clone as they approached, having met on the way here, pulled him out of his musing. He sat up, he could rest on Sunday, he still had training to do.

Now if only he could work out how to motivate the lazy asshole beside him into joining them.

---

Chapter 14

---

Chapter 14

"Thanks for the food!" Naruko called before digging in, bubbly with excitement, as she had been all day. She'd never looked forward to a birthday like this before. Sure, she did look forward to them, since the old man always made time to get some ramen with her on the day, but that was kind of balanced out by how everyone else sneered just that little bit more nastily. They weren't training today, and Hotaru had spent the whole rest-day yesterday, taking her shopping so that she'd have something nice to wear. They'd had dinner at Ichiraku's, and had extended them an invitation to come, but they couldn't close the stand on one of the busiest nights of the year.

Ayame had given her her first bowl on the house though.

Tonight would be her first ever birthday party. Hotaru had arranged the whole thing, he'd even approached Akimichi Chōza about finding somewhere to eat out with enough seating for everyone, at a place that wouldn't have a problem with Naruko.

"Someone's excited today. Looking forward to your party?" Ino laughed at Naruko's demeanour.

"Umhm!" she hummed around her mouthful of food brightly, then swallowed and said, "I've never had a party before!"

Ino looked somewhat guilty at that, but Naruko paid her no mind.

"I'm looking forward to it too! Kikuchi's has great food!" Chōji piped in. He was eating a piping hot meal with great relish from the lunch box Hotaru had made for him for his own birthday in May. It was basically a re-usable stasis scroll. If you filled the box, and added chakra, the food would be sealed into a formula on the lid when you closed the latch, keeping the food fresh from cooking and reducing the box to its empty weight. Unlatching the box unsealed the food, so it appeared as if the box just stopped time for the food if you didn't know what was going on.

He'd actually initially made the box to block the byakugan so the Hyūga couldn't give the game away, which had gotten Chōji stopped by ANBU and requested to open the box, and then himself called before the hokage, who had fortunately seen the humour in the prank, but requested that he remove that feature anyway, since being unable to see the contents of a package entering the Academy under the care of a non-shinobi was making the security nervous.

Hotaru hadn't seen why a box would be worse than a sealing scroll, but had complied anyway. Naturally the prank had lasted as long as it took for Hinata to ask why Chōji's lunch box was already empty. The look of horror on Chōji's face at the idea was probably worth it though.

"And we can hit up the festival afterwards!" Ino agreed.

"Maybe you will," Kiba said, "but if I don't finish the homework on the First Hokage tonight, mum will turn me into a rug!"

He slumped over his lunch, "What even is the point of a half-day if they give you extra homework anyway?"

Naruko's birthday fell on the anniversary of the Kyuubi's defeat, and was thus one of her favourite school-days. They skipped classwork entirely and spent the morning sparring and doing other physical training, then after lunch school let out early and the class attended the memorial service to those who had died in the attack. The festival celebrating the victory began in the evening; to show their loved ones in the pure world that they were making the most of the lives the dead gave theirs to protect.

This morning Naruko had beaten all challengers handily except for Hotaru and Sasuke; and she'd come within a hair of adding duck-butt to the list too. She was climbing the class rankings steadily, now sitting firmly in the middle in classwork, and first for the girls (third overall) in the fight rankings. Hotaru said Hinata could still kick her ass if she wasn't so nice though.

"Hehe~!" Naruko giggled.

"Shut up Naruko!" he groused, "It's not like your situation's any better."

"Actually~, Hotaru helped me finish my essay on the Third last night~" Naruko almost sang.

Kiba's head thudded into the table. "No fair! Hotaru, what happened to 'bros before hos?'"

Hotaru regarded him over his bowl of barbecue marinated pork.

"That's the kind of thing someone who's never going to get any 'hos' would say."

Kiba looked around at the girls giving him the stink-eye and groaned.

"Can you at least help me out with this essay? I've checked all the books I could find, and I still can't find how he died."

Surprisingly, Hotaru snorted, drawing everyone's eye, even Shikamaru raised a brow.

"Heh, yeah, you're not gonna find that in the library. I think they sanitised it out of embarrassment."

"You know how he died?" Shikamaru said, curious, "I couldn't find out either."

"Yep, his wife was Uzumaki Mito before she married into the Senju. We got most of her writings back when she passed since they were based on Uzumaki clan techniques; and a few more for safekeeping when Tsunade-sama left since we're her closest relatives. I've read her journals."

"So how did he die?" Ino said, sensing gossip.

"Alright so you know about the Valley of the End right?"

There was a general murmur of agreement from everyone except Naruko and Kiba, who shared a look and a small embarrassed chuckle.

"Not really? Sorry."

"Alright so you remember I told you about how Konoha formed?" He said to Naruko.

"Of course! That was awesome 'ttebayo!"

"Right so the village had been running well for a while, and eventually they decided that they needed to figure out who'd be the second Hokage if something happened to him. Hashirama of course picked Madara, who'd been his first choice for Shodaime after all.

"To be fair, they put it to a vote, and all the other clans, even the Uchiha, preferred Tobirama. Knowing that Tobirama… wasn't fond of the Uchiha to put it lightly, and fearing that the Uchiha would be wiped out under his rule, or reduced to second class citizens, never to get their turn at leading the village they helped found, Madara tried to convince the Uchiha to leave the village.

"Of course, the Uchiha had gotten used to their kids not dying in battle before they were even our age, and had no desire to go back to the way things were before. So they told him to bugger off…

"Which is when Madara, feeling spurned, became the very first missing-nin.

"He left the village and tracked down the Kyuubi, which was relatively peaceful, just minding its own business living in the mountains, and enslaved it to his will with a powerful genjutsu from his mangekyo sharingan.

"Then he came back to destroy Konoha, having decided the village was a failed experiment."

"That's nuts!" Ino burst out.

"It wasn't super rational no. But one of the reasons Tobirama didn't trust the Uchiha much is that the higher powers of the sharingan can erode the users sanity, because the chakra that causes them is extremely imbalanced towards yin, and focused in the brain. According to Mito's journals Tobirama wasn't really discreet about his reasons."

Privately Naruko thought he was probably right to worry, but didn't want to interrupt more - she could sense another badass fight coming.

"So anyway, Hashirama and Madara started fighting…"

"… So there's Hashirama, staring up at Madara, riding on the mind controlled Kyuubi, armoured by Madara's perfect Susanoo, which on its own is capable of fighting the lower numbered tailed beasts, and he says: 'This fight will only hurt the village and its shinobi, it's disrespectful to all of our fallen comrades!' and Madara replies 'You know nothing!' like a child.

"Hashirama then tries pleading with him, 'I don't want to kill you!' and Madara doesn't like that. 'Are you saying you can kill me anytime you want?!' he shouts, and Hashirama says, 'No! I'm saying you're my friend!', but Madara isn't listening any more and shouts 'I've already reached the top.' and the Kyuubi gave a great roar that shook the earth."

Hotaru's voice hushed, to heighten the drama of the moment for his hooked audience. He'd been doing a fairly accurate impression of the combatant's voices from the anime his past self watched, but not so accurate that it'd raise questions should the Third decide to start watching in for some reason.

" 'So be it.' The First intoned sadly, as if decreeing the death of his oldest friend; and in truth, he was, for you see although his plea to Madara hadn't been made as the boast he'd taken it as, it wasn't far from the truth. While Madara had grown in strength a little in the years the village had flourished, Hashirama had taken the time while his clan was safe to study senjutsu with the great slug Katsuyuu in Shikkotsu forest; and the might of a sage when compared to a ninja, is like that of a ninja compared to a civilian."

Hotaru took a sip of water and continued.

"The First had used their conversation to gather natural energy to him, and with the power of nature itself filling him, he unleashed his true strength for the first time! A great wooden statue, a thousand arms coming from its back, that was so huge it towered over the very mountains! So massive it was big enough to pick the colossal Kyuubi up in one hand like a pet kitten.

"Mito and Tobirama, watching from a distance, had to back away even more with great haste, as the barrage of jutsu that followed was so devastating that the maps of the region had to be redrawn. It was the kind of clash where a shinobi could claim a place in legend, simply for surviving to tell of the battle after being close enough to witness it.

"By the time the dust had settled, they returned to see Hashirama and Madara fighting in the crater left behind, the Kyuubi held in the hand of the statue, sleeping, having been suppressed by one of Hashirama's mokuton jutsu.

"Back and forth they clashed, until Madara landed a decisive blow with his scythe, and Hashirama fell into the water, already pooling in what would one day become a lake."

"What! No, he can't lose!" Naruko cried.

"Shut up Naruko, it's not finished obviously, we already know he won."

Surprisingly, Shika appeared to be invested in the story as well.

" 'I'm the one standing this time, the opposite of last time.' Madara said. Hashirama struggled to turn over and replied: 'I just wanted to protect the dream we finally realised.' Madara laughed, 'You're looking pretty depressed Hashirama, can't perk back up this time?' he mocked, and at that moment, Hashirama's sword pierced his chest from behind. The fallen Hashirama turned to wood, revealing itself as a clone.

" 'Mokuton Bunshin?!' he gasped out, 'I can't believe my back was taken!', for throughout his life he had taken great pride that nobody had ever been able to sneak up on him from behind.

" 'I will protect our… no, my village. No matter what.' Hashirama stated with finality, all mercy gone from his voice. 'I still believe to this day that protecting the village will lead to the protection of the people, the shinobi and the children. I won't forgive anyone who threatens the village, be they a friend… sibling… or even my own child.'

"Madara's last words were 'You've got your priorities backwards.' and that is ultimately why he was passed over for the Hokage position. Hashirama understood that the Hokage, as the leader, needs to see the village as the first priority. And everyone else knew that if Madara was chosen, he would put the interests of his family above the common good.

"That. Was. Awesome 'ttebayo!" Naruko leaped up, punching the air.

Heck yeah it was! Shodaime is the greatest! He Kicked his rival's and the Kyuubi's ass at the same time!" Kiba shouted.

"That's all fine, but what does it have to do with how he died? I know he was alive after the battle, because he passed a few laws, and attended the first Kage summit after the battle with Madara." Shikamaru had also drawn the first for the essay, though his was long finished.

"Hey yeah! How did he?" Naruko looked puzzled.

"Well, I wasn't finished yet, see knowing that the Kyuubi could be subjugated by genjutsu they were worried that someone else might try the same thing, so after the battle, Mito sealed the Kyuubi inside herself, becoming the first jinchūriki since the time of the Sage of Six Paths."

"Jinchūriki?" Ino said.

"It means 'human sacrifice'. It's used to refer to people who have tailed beasts sealed inside them, as well as a select few other spiritual entities, technically… Although much like the leaders of the lesser villages aren't really entitled to call themselves 'Kage', jinchūriki is primarily for hosts of the tailed beasts."

"So the thing about the Uzumaki is we're known for our incredible life force and stamina, and we also tend to have fairly high libidos due to naturally having a lot of physical energy… Both traits which, it turns out, are massively amplified by being a jinchūriki."

"What's a libido?" Naruko asked.

"It means how much you want to have sex, high is a lot, low is not much." Shikamaru stated absently, already working out where this was going, Naruko, Ino and Chōji pinking in their seats. "Wait… are you saying… that the First Hokage, the strongest ninja who ever ninja'd, died of too much sex?!"

Hotaru had a huge grin on his face. "I have his wife's journals to prove it too." he laughed, "He went out the way he lived: the Pinnacle of Masculinity, which all men should aspire to emulate. She wore him out over the course of a few years until he overused his regeneration jutsu on a marathon session, and died of acute chakra exhaustion."

Thump.

Everyone looked over at Hinata, who'd just fainted. There was a trickle of red leaking out from beneath her face.

"Oh no! Hinata's sick!" Naruko cried.

"And she hit her nose when she fell! Look, she's bleeding!" That was Kiba.

Hotaru fell out of his seat laughing, Shikamaru was wheezing against the table. Ino had her crimson face buried in hands. Chōji was no longer paying attention, having commandeered Shikamaru's leftovers.

"That's so mean guys, don't laugh at her!" Naruko pouted. Hotaru couldn't breathe in to reply.

"Well if you're all going to be butts, I'll take her to the medic without you!" She picked up Hinata and trotted off into the building.

Kiba had initially started after her, but stopped, looking between Ino, Shika and Hotaru. "She's not sick, is she?" he asked as it dawned on him.

"Nope, she's just a perv with a low tolerance." Shikamaru said, wiping tears from his eyes.

---

Ino patted down her yukata, fretting once again about the way she looked as she and her parents approached Kikuchi's sushi restaurant.

"You look lovely sweetie, stop fussing." As if reading her mind - never an impossibility in her family - her mum stepped in to calm her down.

"I know mum, it's me after all," some facts should never be disputed, and nobody would ever accuse Yamanaka Ino of low self confidence, "but this is the first time Hotaru-kun has seen me in a yukata! I need to look perfect!"

"Don't know what the big deal is with that bra- Ow!" Inoichi grumbled before hopping on one leg as she kicked his ankle.

"You be quiet daddy! Don't think I've forgotten about what you did to poor Hotaru-kun!" Ino scowled, hands on hips.

"Tch! Damn Anko and her big mouth…" he muttered under his breath.

"Hasn't Hotaru seen you in several yukatas before… Like at last year's festival for example?" Her mum distracted her successfully.

"Well yeah, but this is the first time since he started noticing girls! All those other ones don't count!" Adults were so slow sometimes.

Her father's face darkened at the mention of Hotaru noticing girls, and she narrowed her eyes as she looked up at him, daring him to say anything.

Ino's face heated as she remembered the first time she'd gotten a real reaction from him. It was just two months ago, when several members of her clan had paid for Hotaru to apply his special training seal to them after hearing the glowing reviews of the Inuzuka clan and especially Might Gai.

According to Hotaru they were actually one of the last clans to get some of the seals. Her daddy had put it off because he hadn't wanted the boy around her naked, but he ended up shooting himself in the foot, as well as helping her on her quest to win his heart, when the other clan members got insistent that he arrange for their turn. Ino had insisted on going last.

Ino still got shivers every time she remembered the feel of his fingers tracing over every part of her body. She'd been grounded for a week by her mum after the second time she'd deliberately shifted, causing him to have to redo the area around her privates twice and nearly giving her father an aneurysm. It was totally worth it, even if it had taken all her courage not to curl up in a ball and hide.

Afterwards she'd screwed up the last scraps of her courage and tried flirting with him sans clothes. She'd run her hand down his chest with her best sultry look and stopped just above the clearly hard bulge in his pants and said "So you do think I'm pretty!"

At which point her father had stormed in from the next room, having heard enough, and bodily thrown Hotaru-kun out the door, shouting something about how he'd said that he wasn't looking at girls yet.

The dumb look on his face when Hotaru had called out "That was six months ago!" from the other room had set all the women in the clan laughing at him.

It was her aunt that really twisted the knife though when she said. "I didn't hear anything about him having that problem with the Hyūga girls, I guess it's new. You probably shouldn't have put this off for so long."

Ino was drawn out of the private giggle session (that was beginning to weird out her parents), when they reached the entrance of Kikuchi's and were shown to their table, or rather tables, by the staff.

It looked like Hotaru had arranged a second, larger table for the parents and other adults.

"Is that the Hokage!?" Ino blurted out, seeing the third happily puffing away at his pipe and joking with Chōza and a Jōnin with a bowl cut and enormous eyebrows.

"Oh yes," Inoichi said, "He and Naruko are quite close. Though it's rare he gets much time to spend with her."

Ino quietly boggled at him until her mum gave her a little push towards the student table, at which point she went over to the waving Naruko, who jumped up to meet her. Ino noticed with slight jealousy that she looked amazing when she was all dressed up. She was wearing her hair up in a knot, and had a light turquoise yukata with flowers on it.

"Here," she said, holding out the box she'd brought with her, "Make sure you read the care instructions, and don't make any of the poison in the recipe in there without someone else around to get you help if you mess up."

The box contained a potted plant whose leaves could be used to make an easy, relatively safe paralytic poison that was perfect for beginners to apply to a senbon. It also contained a good dose of the antidote. Privately Ino hoped her rival would have an accident and wet herself when the poison numbed her bladder.

Naruko peeked inside the box, then looked up brightly, "Thanks Ino-chan!"

Oof. And now she had a rival hanging off of her. Great. Why did she have to be the person who held the most of her Hotaru-kun's attention when she was so damn likeable?

Looking around she saw most of her notable classmates were already here and seated. The closest she could sit to Hotaru was on the other side of Chōji, who was already snacking on some gyoza appetisers.

Slumping slightly in defeat at missing out, she chose instead to make her way towards Hinata, not paying enough attention to where she was going and bumping into a purple haired lady returning from the bathroom.

'Oh! This is Hotaru's um… aunt? Yu-something?' Reflexively, she bowed, "I'm so sorry for running into you." Her gaze tracked down to the still fairly small but readily apparent baby bump. "Oh my god, congratulations!" she almost squealed.

"Thanks Ino-chan." the lady, ' Yugao! That's it!' placed one hand on her belly fondly in a manner seemingly instinctive to all pregnant women. "Our own little miracle. We were hesitant to have one with Hayate's illness, but since Hotaru's latest seal made a full cure possible… Well, I can finally start the family I always wanted."

"That's great! I wonder what it's going to be?" Ino cooed over the small bump. "Can I touch it?"

Yugao laughed, "If you want. But it won't be kicking for a good while yet." she leaned in conspiratorially as Ino placed her hand on the warm bump in fascination, "Just between you and me, I'm hoping it's a boy. Hotaru was so cute, but he never let me look after him like I wanted." She pouted. "He's so set on maintaining his clan that he won't even live with us. And I know how much it would mean to Hayate to carry on his name - since his only brother married into a clan, he's the only Gekko left in the village."

The two exchanged pleasantries for a little and then Yugao left to return to her seat.

Ino sat down next to Hinata, who was wearing a burnt orange yukata with a print of lavender accented black flowers."Hi Hinata-chan, I love your yukata!" she said.

"Thank you Ino-chan," she replied demurely, "you also look lovely in that shade of red."

"I do, don't I?" Ino said, preening at the compliment and adjusting her sleeve slightly. "So, I see you chose to wear orange… are you finally giving up on my Hotaru-kun? Decided to go after Naruko instead? I fully support you if you do."

Ino giggled and poured some water whilst watching Hinata sputter, only to nearly choke on it when Hinata visibly screwed up her courage and riposted in a nearly challenging tone. "M-maybe I decided I want both!" With her face beet red, she looked like she was about to faint a second time, but continued anyway, "You won't have much chance of winning if the two of us work together while you can't even decide which boy you want."

Ino laughed, mostly to cover the sickly, uneasy feeling that, probably true, statement left in her gut.

"Wow, someone's feeling brave today! I think this is the first time you've admitted that you even like him."

'Crap! They wouldn't really team up on me would they?' Her eyes tracked to Naruko, and back to Hinata, who was fussing her clothes and stammering again, courage expended for now. 'No, they totally would. I need to step up my game!'

Further thoughts along those lines were put on hold when she glanced at the door, and saw a rather unlikely group entering.

'Sasuke! I thought he'd skip out again!'

---

Chōji looked up from his appetisers at the latest arrivals, and his eyes widened slightly in shock. Sasuke never attended social events of any kind, even though they always made a point to invite him.

Out of all their classmates, Sasuke was the one who'd changed the most in the last several months. This would be surprising to most, as on the surface it appeared to be Naruko, with her massive improvement in grades and the way she no longer had problems following the conversation when Shikamaru used big words (most of the time). Her smile was a lot more genuine too, that was the biggest real change.

To Chōji however, who'd grown up with both of them, the truth couldn't be more obvious. Naruko's changes were nearly all on the surface. Sasuke on the other hand appeared mostly unchanged at first glance; but everything had changed for the boy on the inside about five months ago.

Five months ago, when he'd been pulled away from class by the Hokage, and not returned for three days, finally showing up with a still stunned, disbelieving air about him, as if he expected someone to jump out and tell him this was all a crude genjutsu.

They'd found out why that same evening. The Hokage had announced that an unnamed criminal, who had been planning a coup, had been captured, and that among the evidence seized there had been found a trio of expensive medical stasis scrolls, usually used for carrying wounded allies back to hospitals. In those scrolls were found three Uchiha children.

One of those found was Uchiha Kagome, Sasuke's first cousin, originally two years older than him - now six months younger. The second had been their own former classmate and friend, Uchiha Tanjiro. The third was a much younger boy, whose name he'd already forgotten.

All three of them were present along with Sasuke, and Chōji suspected that it was Tanjiro that had insisted they come. Naturally, no one had even considered dropping Tanjiro as a friend just because he was now over two years their junior.

Chōji especially had been ecstatic to have his friend back, Tanjiro had probably been his closest friend after Shikamaru. He was going to be a couple of years behind now, but Kagome was apparently getting caught up so that she could join their year in the next new term. She'd probably end up in a different class though.

Chōji lifted his arm and waved them over, the four of them, led by Tanjiro, made their way over to him, stopping on the way to wish Naruko a happy birthday, and hand over a scroll.

"Hi Chōji!" the (now) younger boy said happily. "Good snacks?"

"Hey Tanjiro. Yeah, kikuchi's make the best vegetable gyoza in town." He looked around nervously for a second. "Don't tell my mum I said that."

Tanjiro and Kagome laughed, even Sasuke smirked, hovering around his cousins protectively as he was. In a few short months he'd gone from a tightly bundled ball of depression, angst and brooding, to tentatively allowing himself to have fun at times. Sometimes, if he thought nobody was looking he even smiled. But he'd also become even more obsessed with getting stronger, now terrified of losing the small family he'd regained.

Fortunately, whilst he was more sombre and prone to bouts of sadness than before, Tanjiro's nature as a fairly happy and social person had mostly survived intact through the loss of his clan, and a few years of his life. Ino's dad had helped him personally, and he was still getting regular therapy.

He quickly set about talking about what he'd done since they last saw each other, barely slowing when the sushi platters came out and he lost the bulk of Chōji's attention.

Fortunately, Kikuchi's served the Akimichi often and knew the kind of portions to bring. Still Chōji couldn't help but notice how incredibly fresh it tasted, even so far from the ocean.

---

Shikamaru took another bite of otoro, marvelling again at the pale pink flesh. It was incredibly fresh, but unlike Chōji, Shikamaru had gone to the trouble of finding out why.

It was troublesome, but curiosity was one of the drawbacks of high intelligence. Fortunately a quick word with the staff had been sufficient to put this unsolved mystery to rest: Hotaru had gotten himself a massive discount on tonight's celebrations by providing the restaurant with a large stockpile of expensive stasis scrolls well in advance, with which the restaurant could ensure access to top quality ingredients for well into the foreseeable future.

In short, the fish tasted like it had been pulled from the surf hours ago, because from the perspective of the fish, it had been. This was actually a very clever move on Hotaru's part as, having seen him make similar scrolls on occasion, Shikamaru knew that he was able to do so in seconds. It was a big win for the restaurant, gaining the ability to to boast the freshest sushi in Konoha at a fraction of the usual price, but an even bigger win for his classmate who, for the price of a few minutes concentration and some blank scrolls, would be saving probably thousands of ryo, improving tonight's dinner, and gaining a long term customer - there was no way Kikuchi's would be able to go back to days old ingredients after an extended period like this.

There was one more mystery he wanted solved today however, and seeing that Naruko appeared distracted with chatting to Lee, he turned to Hotaru and asked in a low voice:

"So, during lunch today you mentioned other tailed beasts, and jinchūriki?"

Hotaru's face slipped into a neutral expression as he turned to regard him.

"I did, yes?"

Hotaru let the statement hang.

"There are other tailed beasts then? Besides the nine-tails I mean."

"Yes, eight more, each with a different number of tails, one through eight. The First hokage captured them all, except the one-tail, and distributed them to the other villages in the hopes of creating a power balance. Each was sealed inside a jinchūriki."

Shikamaru regarded him incredulously. "He gave them away…?"

Hotaru laughed softly, "Yeah, not exactly his brightest move, I know, but it was at least well intentioned. Kumo got eight and two, Iwa five and four, Kiri got three and six. We kept nine and seven, the strongest and the only one with an aerial advantage, but later gave seven to Taki. Suna captured the one-tail on its own and refused another, instead demanding we give them resources to join the peace agreement."

"We didn't actually give them money did we?"

Hotaru snorted. "Yeah, for some reason we did. Personally I'd have just told them to have fun being the only village with enemies and no trade to boot. Anyway, I'm not sure why this isn't taught because not knowing to withdraw when we see an enemy nin leaking red chakra so dense it's visible could get us killed but…"

Shikamaru was quiet for a while.

"Naruko is the nine-tails jinchūriki, isn't she," he said quietly, leaning in, "Everything adds up."

Hotaru very obviously glanced around to make sure no one heard. "I'm sure I have no idea what you're talking about." He stated equally softly, but firmly, holding his gaze.

"If you wanted to know about something like that I'm sure you'd need to ask the Hokage directly, and not. spread your suspicions. around."

'Right, classified, message received.' Shika sat back. "Right, that's ridiculous, don't know what I was thinking." 'Troublesome blondes.'

"Have you tried any of the makizushi yet?" he asked, his curiosity satisfied with the all-but-confirmation Hotaru had handed him.

"Not yet, is it good?"

"Probably the second best thing here. You should probably get some while you can, there's only three left on this part of the table, and Chōji's halfway through his current plate already."

"Thanks, pass the plate?"

Hotaru took two of the remaining three, and Shikamaru considered the third but ultimately decided to leave it. He'd had plenty and was mostly full; and he knew how his best friend felt about the last piece - even if he wasn't as bad about foods that weren't chips.

His red haired friend only got one piece down before Naruko draped over him from the other side. Her chopsticks snagged the second off his plate with an "Ooh, these ones are great!"

Naruko looked happier than he'd ever seen her, and he was startled to see she looked quite pretty, grinning at Hotaru from point blank as she was. He also noticed that the way she was draped over Hotaru's shoulder had given some slack to her neckline, and that he could see entirely more of her modest chest than she would probably want him to.

He pinked slightly and looked away, deciding to ignore Naruko's babbling and examine the adult's table. The last thing he wanted was to develop a crush on a troublesome blonde - especially when it was blatantly obvious to anyone with eyes that it'd go unrequited.

All of the parents seemed to be having a great time too, they looked like they were beginning to get into their cups though, even the Third looked quite relaxed, and a little tipsy.

Thud!

Shikamaru's head whipped around to look past Naruko and Hotaru at Rock Lee; collapsed backwards on the floor. Conversation ground to a halt as a few at a time, all heads turned to look at the collapsed Lee, splayed on the ground. Gai half rose from his seat in concern

Slowly, as if afraid of what she'd find, Naruko extracted herself from her position wrapped around Hotaru, and reached out towards Lee's head to check he was breathing.

Suddenly, Lee's hand snapped up, catching her wrist in an iron grip, and he pulled himself swiftly upright, a dopey look on his face.

"Wha-wha happened? Why'sh the room shpinnen? What ish thish?!"

Lee sounded very, very drunk.

A few of the students were eyeing their own cups, as if worried they'd be next. Glancing around again, Shikamaru even saw Sasuke using a jutsu to detect common poisons on his cousins cups.

Sharing an incredulous look with Naruko, Hinata leaned over and sniffed Lee's cup. Then shook her head. "It's just amazake." she said.

Borderline non-alcoholic then, traces only, surely he can't be that lightweight. 'Maybe they didn't warm it enough to fully evaporate the alcohol? No, Hinata would have smelled that, surely.'

"I think I, HIC, I think I need tha bathroom." Lee stood abruptly, wobbling in a circle, and staggered towards the restaurant bathroom, only to trip over his own feet and face plant full tilt in front of Hyūga Hiashi, himself returning from the bathroom.

Hinata's father, having drunk far more than he usually did himself, looked down his nose as if he'd had a close call with stepping in something unpleasant.

"Lovely." He said with a small sneer.

"Wha… Whatsh goin on?" Lee said, still face down.

He rolled over. "Ah'm on tha ground?" he flipped himself onto his feet. "Was goin' barshroom. Who tripped me?"

Suddenly Lee locked gazes with Hiashi! "Stop starin' at me!" he cried, launching himself forward and catching the unsuspecting Hiashi across the jaw with a vicious hook. "Was your fault!"

Shikamaru heard a cough, and looked over to see Kiba's mum laughing at the Hyūga man's misfortune. Gai looked shocked to the point of nearly petrified.

Outraged, Hiashi surged back upright only to nearly run into Lee's follow up spinning back kick.

Despite his inebriation however Hiashi swiftly leaned back out of the way, letting the kick sail by just centimetres from his nose.

He deftly dodged a flurry of strikes from the still much slower boy, before launching a barrage of a half dozen strikes back, aiming to incapacitate.

Surprisingly for everyone, he hit only air, Lee dodging erratically and then going into a handstand, kicking Hiashi in the stomach and cartwheeling back to his feet with the recoil.

As shocking as the boy's suddenly increased taijutsu prowess was, Shikamaru could see that Hiashi was getting fed up, his eyes narrowing dangerously. Lee wasn't going to be able to dodge for long; in terms of Taijutsu prowess, Hiashi was second only to Gai himself in the entire village, and was already beginning to accustom himself to the way Lee was moving.

He was also still much faster and stronger than the twelve year old Lee. Shikamaru couldn't see this ending well for the boy who had twice embarrassed the clan head of the most image conscious clan in the village.

His dad must have reached the same conclusion, as right as Hiashi was about to finally land a hit, both combatants froze. Shika looked down and saw it was his father's work, using his clan's most famous jutsu.

Hiashi was let go almost immediately, and stood back up straight, trying to recapture his dignity as he fixed his yukata. "Thank you." he said with a nod.

"What fool taught a child the drunken fist?" he paused, as if considering his priorities, "Or gave him alcohol for that matter?"

All eyes went to Gai, who, contrary to looking contrite, was nearly sobbing with youthful joy, a napkin clamped between his clenched teeth.

"Lee! All this time we thought you were without talent, and you were secretly a natural born master of the Suiken!" he cried.

"Troublesome." Shikamaru muttered under his breath. Somehow he just knew that this was going to make the joint training sessions, which Hotaru and Naruko had had an annoying number of successes forcing him to participate in, even more bothersome.

---

Naruko operated the door handle of Hotaru's home to let them both inside; he couldn't do it himself on account of both his hands being occupied supporting her thighs.

She was currently draped over his back in a piggyback - she wasn't tired, or hurt, she'd just wanted to be spoiled, and Hotaru had been willing to indulge her.

Feet kicking out in front of them, she pointed forward, a water balloon yo-yo from the festival flying around erratically with the exuberance of the motion, and cried "Onward noble steed!"

Laughing, Hotaru carted her inside, kicking the door closed behind him and reapplying the security through his foot.

"All right, we're here Naruko, time to get down."

Hotaru kicked his geta off, but rather than get down, Naruko's legs locked at the ankles around his waist, and her arms came in to hug her body tight against his back.

"Nooooo~" she whined in a small, cute voice, burying her face in the crook of his neck. "Comfy."

She could feel his almost unnatural warmth seeping into her, it made her limbs feel all noodly, like cooked ramen. Unable to help herself, she took a deep breath in through her nose, slowly so he wouldn't realise she was smelling him.

'He always smells so incredible when he's not wearing that scent remover. It's almost unfair!'

Naruko had always had a great sense of smell. Not quite on the level of the Inuzuka, but not too far off, and Hotaru's scent had always drawn her to him. It was fresh and clean, even when he was sweaty - which was almost never nowadays - and often had traces of the smell of paper and ink.

She didn't know why, but that smell was strangely nostalgic, warm. Underlying everything else was a smell that was just… him. Everyone had one, but Hotaru's in particular was kind, and welcoming, and had always made her tummy do backflips. It seemed to get better every time she smelled it too. It was the very first thing that drew her to him, before she realised that he was someone who finally wanted to be her friend, before she even realised how handsome he was.

She knew that Hinata felt similarly about his chakra, the girl having admitted to Naruko in conversation that it didn't look quite like everyone else's unless he was trying to blend in during an urban stealth exercise. His chakra was completely calm, smooth and controlled, flowing incredibly fast through his body. Where most people's chakra was varying degrees of turbulent and cloudy, the smoothness of Hotaru's chakra flow, she was told dreamily, made it almost clear, like a river of flowing gemstone.

Hinata admitted that sometimes she turned on the byakugan to just stare at it for a while, and Naruko couldn't help feeling a little jealous - she mostly only got traces of his scent towards the end of the day when the scent erasing deodorant began to wear off.

Hotaru, unseen to her, pinked slightly as he floundered, unsure of what to do in the face of her clinginess. She'd ended up back at his place through the same tactics, tugging on his sleeve from behind, and looking up at him vulnerably, her best puppy eyes on, she'd asked to sleep over at his place. He hadn't been able to refuse.

Ino had been incensed, and had immediately petitioned her parents to allow her to join the sleepover. Naturally her dad had denied her vehemently, and then proceeded to drag her home, nearly to the point of frothing at the mouth in rage at her rival getting one up on her.

Naruko felt a small amount of guilty glee at that.

Giving in, Hotaru sighed, and Naruko's geta appeared next to his on the floor.

Naruko blinked, holding up one sock covered foot to see her geta was gone. 'How did…?' She looked back down at the sandal, 'The lacing is still tied!'

Geta were not usually fastened from behind, but experience had taught Naruko that her… animated personality and body language would see her geta flying away from her irritatingly often, so she'd added an extra ribbon herself to lace behind the heel. She hadn't lost a shoe for three whole festivals now!

Hotaru carted her into his room before she had a chance to say anything and sat on his bed. "Alright, you can let go now."

Naruko squeezed again in response, only to hear an almost silent puff, and suddenly there was a weight on the mattress behind her, and before her eyes even had a chance to finish widening, two fingers were gently digging into her ribs.

Naruko shrieked, letting go to flail with her arms and legs, desperately trying to defend herself from the clone tickling her.

"Hotaru! Stop it!" She cried through her laughter, not quite sure if she meant it or not.

Instead of stopping, Hotaru spun around, catching both of her feet, one in each hand, hooked a finger in the opening to each of her socks and whipped them off in one smooth movement. Before she processed what was happening, both feet were tucked under one of his arms, and fingers were dancing with a feather light touch across the arches of her soles.

Shrieking with renewed laughter, she struggled with new vigour as she became desperate for air, arching her hips and back off the bed as she twisted her body left and right, trying to pry herself loose.

Her lucky break came when a flailing elbow caught the clone in the head, popping it and she could bring her hands to bear on the task of freeing her feet, having a much easier time breathing now since her sides were far more ticklish than her feet.

She got one free first and then used that to get leverage to yank the other free. Backing up on the bed, she took a few moments to breathe, then launched herself in a diving tackle at her smugly grinning assailant who was sitting on the floor chuckling at her.

"Vengeance!!" she cried passionately as she collided with him, the two of them tumbling across the floor.

The pair tumbled around on the floor for several minutes, wrestling for supremacy, the position of advantage shifting back and forth. Naruko found the best spot to break Hotaru was the back of his ribs, in contrast to her own weak point, which was the top front side, right below her breasts.

Their competition came to a close when Hotaru managed to catch both of her hands and pin them with his own next to her head. Lying bodily on her to pin her down, his legs between hers. She flailed her legs for a moment, before giving it up as a lost cause.

'He can't get me from this position either though… We'll call it a draw.' she decided firmly in her own head. No way did she lose.

Naruko lay there, catching her breath from laughing, looking into his eyes hovering above her as he did the same. She flushed prettily, her heartbeat picking back up as she realised their position. He was laying between her parted legs, her yukata had ridden up during the tussling and would be showing her panties were he to get off of her.

Ino had told her that you weren't supposed to wear panties under a yukata last year, but Naruko had called bullshit and wore them anyway. She'd been vindicated when she noticed a panty line on Ino herself, who'd probably just been trying to embarrass her. Oddly, she'd never seen one on Hinata and wondered if the girl had fallen for Ino's deception. She'd have to remember to tell Hinata at some point.

Hotaru's focus shifted to meet her own eyes for several very long moments, their gazes a bare hands breadth apart, and then he started to go red, finally realising exactly how they were positioned. He looked away and gave a little cough then stood up.

'Actually… I think I won after all.' she thought happily.

Taking his offered hand to pull herself up she followed him into the bathroom to brush their teeth with a weird little jutsu stick. She blushed when she used the stick, since he went first to show her how and handed her the same stick. It was, he said, self cleaning, so there was no need for a second one. It still felt like an indirect kiss though, even though the stick itself pretty much never touched her mouth unless she bumped the cheeks by accident.

Thankfully, after months of exercises, her control was now quite excellent, and she was able to supply the correct amount easily - about six leaves worth - without blowing her head off. Even if Hotaru assured her this seal wouldn't have reacted so badly anyway. It just wouldn't have turned off for about six months.

"This thing is amazing!" Naruko said, looking at the unassuming flat stick in awe. "My mouth feels so clean!"

"Thanks, I made some improvements on the old model a few weeks ago; it didn't use that fine mist to scrub the tongue and roof of the mouth while you did the teeth. I'll make you one to take home in the morning. I already worked out protections for it, since I'm planning to sell them from Ten's shinobi gear."

"These are going to make you a fortune." Naruko put the tooth-cleaner in its cup on the sink.

"Not really," Hotaru shook his head, "I'll probably only be able to charge five to ten times the cost of a normal toothbrush or nobody but nobles will buy them - and chakra using nobles are a large minority."

"Oh, damn." Naruko pouted as she followed him back to his room.

"It doesn't matter," Hotaru laughed, "I made enough on the resistance training seal that I could probably retire already if that was what I wanted."

"Wow! Really?" Naruko had a hard time imagining being that rich.

"Yep, all the clans and quite a few jōnin got them. So… Do you want me to bring in a futon, or do you wanna take my parent's bed?"

"Hah?! Don't bother, I'll just sleep in your bed with you again. It's fine isn't it?" Naruko said, startled, never having considered that he might expect her to sleep somewhere else. 'Getting more cuddles like last time was the whole point of staying over dumbass!'

Hotaru shrugged. "I guess that's fine." he turned away and began stripping. Naruko followed suit, untying the long sash at her waist, and discreetly admiring his form as she did so. Unlike what she expected however, he didn't stop at boxers, and instead stripped fully naked.

"What are you doing?!" she yelped. Hotaru turned to look at her, and she quietly covered her bare chest with one arm, the other covering her eyes - although she wasn't blocking much of her view with her fingers so spread out - she had intended to steal a shirt to sleep in from the scroll hanging on the wall. Still, she saw his gaze track down her body and back up. It sent a little thrill up her spine that he was interested enough to look. She knew she still didn't have that much to look at, but she was fit, and one of the most developed in the class nonetheless, and she was pretty proud of how she looked.

"I always sleep naked." he shrugged, "Don't worry, you can wear clothes if you want, or I can still arrange another bed for you."

Naruko thought hard about what to do, but once the thought entered her head, she couldn't silence that little voice that asked 'How much nicer would cuddles be with no clothes in the way?'

She bit her lip.

"No, it's fine. Hurry up and get under the covers."

Hotaru got into the bed and lay down facing away.

"Where's the light switch?" Naruko asked, puzzled, only for the room to go dark.

"Sorry, that seal's not the visible type. I'll have to put a plate there or something later."

Padding over to the bed, Naruko hesitated, then set her jaw and slid her panties off too. Slipping under the covers and worming herself closer to Hotaru's back.

"Good night Hotaru."

"Night Naruko."

She was still feeling a little keyed up about being naked in bed with a boy, but the warmth and the darkness quickly lulled her into a drowsy state.

'This was the best day ever!' Her eyes grew heavy.

"Hey, Hotaru?" she whispered.

"Mm?"

"Thank you." There were a few beats of silence, and then a reply came, but she didn't hear it, having already drifted off.

---

Chapter 15

---

Chapter 15

Hotaru woke suddenly and almost completely, as was customary for him, although anyone who lacked the byakugan's ability to examine the inner workings of the chakra network would be forgiven for failing to notice his change in status; he had attempted to train in waking discreetly and feigning continued sleep as a small child in order to take a break from the Academy. His methods wouldn't have worked, but his intent, and general awareness of the desired result had been sufficient for his power to begin working.

His awareness first reached out with the Kagura Shingan, checking first the immediate surroundings, and then the wider village. Finding nothing obvious out of place, his eyes opened, and he assumed a more normal breathing pattern.

He could feel the warmth of his clone pressing into his back comfortably, and dismissed it with a flex of will. His barely formed thoughts ground to a halt as the clone failed to pop.

His eyes widened as his brain finally finished coming online. That wasn't a clone. That was Naruko.

Which put him in a rather awkward position, as during the night she had pressed herself against his back in the big spoon position. This in itself wasn't an issue, however the way she'd taken a firm grip of his morning problem at some point in her sleep had the potential to be awkward.

Not a big problem though, he'd just pry her loose gently, and then switch with a clone that could pop once he'd left the room.

His hand shifted slowly so as not to wake the sleeping blonde up, and gently began to tease up the first finger, when he felt a little pulse of dark, thick chakra from the girl's gut and she stirred, shifting against his back, her grip re-tightening.

'Furry son of a bitch!' he snarled mentally, 'Alright, new plan: feign sleep until she lets go, then pretend to wake up. She'll be a little awkward, but as long as she doesn't know that I know…'

Hotaru quickly returned his breathing to the pattern it had fallen into before he awoke and closed his eyes.

He could feel it clearly, the moment she awoke. The way she stiffened slightly against his back, the grip she had on him tightened just a touch, then loosened and groped up and down slightly as if her half asleep mind was trying to process what she was holding.

Her moment of realisation was obvious as she completely froze, even holding her breath. Her hand started to withdraw rapidly, but stopped for some reason with just the fingers still in contact.

Tentatively they began to stroke up and down, and she reaffirmed her grip, her thumb resting somewhere sensitive.

Hotaru could feel Naruko's breath growing laboured, her skin heating and growing clammy against his back. One of her legs lifted and curled over his own. Her hot forehead pressed against the nape of his neck, taking a deep sniff of his hair as he felt the back of her hand squeeze between her belly and his back and snake down between her thighs.

'Oi, oi! Seriously!? Is this really happening right now?' Hotaru fought to keep his breathing even, in the face of the new stimulus his classmate was unwittingly providing.

Naruko was panting now, he could feel little hard points pressing into his back, and the knuckles of her hand as it worked back and forth vigorously.

The cool sensation of the deep breaths being sucked in past his neck through lips bare millimetres from his neck alternated with the hot, damp of her panting exhale sending shivers up and down his spine.

Naruko's other hand explored her accidental handhold, not aiming to bring him any pleasure, but more as if she was trying to map it out with her touch. Hotaru, completely inexperienced, having not taken the time to even explore that side of himself on his own yet, was beginning to climb that peak anyway.

Suddenly her leg pulled him in as close as possible, and her grip, trained as it was by her resistance seal, tightened in a way that might have been very painful, or even crippling had Hotaru's essence not been training his toughness for years. Naruko's abs began so tense rhythmically against his back, and her hand had almost stilled.

Beet red, Hotaru realised she'd climaxed against him. He was close himself, but as she lay there unmoving he had plenty of time to back fully away from the metaphorical edge.

And then she began moving all over again, and a dreadful truth made itself known to him. 'It's easy to forget because of her hair, but she's an Uzumaki jinchūriki, just like Mito-sama'

---

Seven times. Seven. Times. Seven times she'd started again after the first time. By the end, the scent of Naruko's arousal was thick in the air and Hotaru's self control hung by a thread. He was a bare breath or two away from adding to the mess on his bed - which, judging from the sloshing sounds he could hear by the end, was probably substantial.

He had been saved from an extremely awkward conversation by Takahiko, his summon, tapping on the window with his beak to give his report, having returned from his trip to circle above Iwagakure. He wondered how long she would have continued if left uninterrupted.

Takahiko was one of several falcons he'd sent out to attempt to get a handle on how the situation had changed with Danzo's death. He'd gotten their contract only a few weeks ago, after performing the summons with no contract signed and instead reverse summoning himself to his most suitable summon creature.

He was quite happy with the falcons - they were one of the few summon animals with the gigantic boss level summons, although they lacked any sages, not controlling one of the three principal locations that were still steeped in natural energy, nor a means to train the skill in relative safety. That might soon change however, as Hotaru had hooked the elder up with a seal that would automatically eject any natural energy in the body should it begin to overwhelm his chakra network. Nature energy was surprisingly trivial to work with using a seal once you were able to wield it through senjutsu.

Naruko had frozen as the bird tapped the glass, whipped her hand away from his privates and practically leapt from the bed, dashing away toward the bathroom.

Hotaru turned over to look after her out the door, then down at his bed, which, as he had suspected would be the case, now sported a substantial wet patch.

Deciding to spare her the embarrassment of coming back for her clothes and finding it, he used suiton manipulation to pull the liquid from the sheets and into a little ball, hovering over his hand, which he took to the window, letting Takahiko inside, even as he cast the ball out, and used fūton to switch in fresh air from outside.

"Morning boss! Somebody had a nice wake up, eh!" The half metre tall bird nudged him with one wing and winked.

"That's one way of putting it. Hold on, I don't have your food ready because of my 'nice wake up'. Let me take a quick shower and I'll put something together for you while you give your report."

"Sure thing boss. I'll just hang out here for the time being."

"She doesn't know I was awake, so don't let her know please." Hotaru said on his way out.

When he reached the bathroom, he gave a little knock, but before his knuckles contacted the door a second time, it opened and he hit only air.

Naruko stood there in the doorway, wrapped in a towel he kept there for her, since she used his shower often. She looked surprised to see him there in the doorway, but quickly took the opportunity to get an eyeful of his unclothed form, going bright red once more. The only reason Hotaru didn't follow suit is that he was deliberately controlling his blood flow with chakra, which happily prevented an involuntary salute as a side effect.

When her eyes finally came back up to meet his, he smiled at her, laughter dancing in his eyes. He'd looked too of course, but with an eidetic memory a glance was as good as a stare, so he'd finished before she could catch him at it.

"Good morning Naruko."

"Good morning." She squeaked cutely.

"Did you sleep well?"

Her flush spread down her chest and under the towel. It took her a little too long to answer, as she was clearly remembering her morning activities.

She cleared her throat. "Great! It was the best sleep of my life 'ttebayo!"

"That's good to hear. We seem to have slept in too long to fit in our usual run, so we'll do that after the Academy today. Why not go get dressed and we'll get breakfast started and sort through your gifts while we eat?"

"Sure thing!"

Hotaru stood aside as she passed and entered the bathroom himself, only for Naruko to spin around and throw herself into a hug from behind, pressing her cheek against his back.

"Thank you." She said, voice a little hoarse. "Yesterday was the best day ever."

"Best day yet." Hotaru corrected her, getting a wet little laugh. "Now shoo, get dressed before we end up late."

Hotaru flew through his morning ablutions, and came back into his room to find Takahiko perched on a heavily blushing Naruko's thigh getting scratches through his feathers.

As was becoming a theme this morning, she was blushing. No doubt Takahiko, attention whore that he was, had blackmailed Naruko into scratching him with his silence on her morning activities.

Quickly getting dressed, he led the pair into the kitchen, got out two scrolls of prepared breakfasts, which he tossed to Naruko, and then unsealed a piece of raw pork and rapidly diced it for Takahiko.

Joining the pair at the table, he found Naruko admiring once again the chakra metal tantō he'd gotten her for her birthday, the rest of her gifts having been unsealed, and spread out beside her food.

Usually a chakra metal tantō would be a bit extravagant for a birthday present, but Hotaru had recently found that by combining intonyin release with other releases he could exercise incredible control over the resulting jutsu's properties.

He'd long ago realised that stacking the earth element on yin allowed him to transmute the earth used in his jutsu to various types of rock, but a proper combination had taken it to the next level.

With a proper combination unnatural properties could be given to jutsu. A stack of fire on yin could yield the unquenchable flames of Amaterasu, but a full combination could take it so much further. Fire could be made to burn only things he wanted it to, rocks could be given the elasticity of rubber or the flexibility of cloth, water could be made to dissolve flesh like acid, or even be given healing properties.

In this case kōtonsteel release, could be manipulated to produce elementium instead of plain iron.

Elementium was a rare form of iron which conducted chakra without any resistance at all, it was only rarely found, and only in small quantities when it was - usually in the land of iron, who used it to make the blades of their samurai.

It was quite soft compared to normal iron, so it was usually alloyed into normal steel. Fifteen percent was the best mix, but most chakra blades would be lucky to get eight percent.

Hotaru had provided an entire ingot of pure elementium in exchange for a single fifteen percent blade. Enough to make forty or more chakra blades. He'd massively overpaid, but the smith in question was exclusively aligned with Konoha, so he'd be strengthening the village by making more elementium available. The man had only even sold to Hotaru as an Academy student in the first place because the Uzumaki were officially a Konoha clan.

Naruko had, true to form, been ecstatic over the 'cool' present. No doubt imagining herself rescuing princesses or the like from the moment she'd seen the blade.

"I'm glad you like your sword, but aren't you going to look at any of the other gifts?"

"It's the greatest! I always wanted a sword!"

"I thought you always wanted 'cool jutsu'?" Hotaru teased.

"Shut up! I can want both!" Naruko's cheeks pinked, but she put down the blade after carefully sheathing it.

"Gramps gave me this one!" she held out a scroll excitedly, "It's called the Shuriken kage bunshin jutsu, he said it's one he created himself."

"Hmmm. That's a really great jutsu for you, especially now that you have good chakra control. I actually made a similar jutsu myself, it'd be interesting to see if there are any differences to the Hokage's version."

Naruko cocked her head. "What makes this jutsu so great?"

"It scales really well. It costs a lot less per shuriken than making a full clone, someone like you can put in enough chakra that it can cover the battlefield with a wall of flying shuriken… and with a modification to the jutsu that I'll teach you after we graduate, you can even make them explode afterwards."

'Are those actual stars in her eyes…?'

"Awesome 'ttebayo! Hey, hey! What about this one Sasuke gave me?"

Hotaru opened the scroll. "Ah, this is a variation on the basic fireball jutsu that you can find in the genin section of the library. It releases a low powered stream of fire instead of a ball. Basically all the more standard fire jutsu are improvements of those two. It's a good base to start with for creating your own fire jutsu. You should thank Sasuke, this is a really good gift for an Academy student to get."

"Huh… Who would have thought duck-butt could be thoughtful."

Hotaru stared at her deadpan. 'Hello pot, my name's kettle.'

"Ah! Wait, you can get jutsu in the library!?"

"Only when you reach genin. Well, you can find the Academy jutsu, like the illusion clone or the spark making jutsu for lighting fires we'll learn next year, and tips on improving the way you use them. You can find jutsu theory to try making your own jutsu too."

"Haah? I guess I'll have to have a look once I become a genin… Anyway, Shika gave me this set of sharpening stones and this pot of medicinal ointment for cuts."

"Ah, yeah, I told him I was getting you a tantō. He was pretty sure you'd just cut yourself."

Hotaru giggled internally at her pout. "Don't worry, he was probably joking."

"Hmph, Chōji gave a big box of fancy chocolates, Hinata-chan gave me this cute little foggy purse, Ino gave me a poisonous plant, Lee and Gai gave me some weights so I can train inside when it rains, and Kiba got me this forearm guard." One by one she picked the items up off the table to show him.

"Ah! I forgot to invite Shino!" Hotaru facepalmed.

"Don't worry, he's out on a mission with his genin team anyway." Naruko consoled him. "He already wished me a happy birthday before he left."

'How the hell did I forget!? I'm supposed to have a perfect memory! Does he have some kind of secret power that causes people to forget him?"

Oblivious to Hotaru's confusion, Naruko dug into her breakfast.

Shrugging, but continuing to mull it over, Hotaru followed suit. Takahiko was the first to finish, having been eating uninterrupted from the moment Hotaru sat down at the table.

"You ready for my report boss?" He asked.

Hotaru waved him to go ahead with his spoon.

"It was all pretty quiet for most of the patrol, nothing looked unusual. The numbers of nin going in and out were normal. But then yesterday the Tsuchikage's building went up in a huge explosion!"

Hotaru raised an eyebrow, and Naruko gasped.

"No way! Did he die?" she asked.

"Definitely not." the falcon shook its head. "He burst out of the building, flying after some blond guy, and firing these big white cones that felt really dangerous. The assassin was blowing a bunch of little white statues up trying to slow him down. They made a pretty big mess of the village."

"Hmm, Sounds like an explosion release user from Iwa's blast corps went missing nin… Did he get away?"

"Yeah, I followed him halfway towards the border with Claw country, but he must have noticed me, because he started sending little bird statues after me, so I left and did another flyover of Iwa. There's Iwa ninja crawling all over the land of Earth right now looking for him."

"Great work Takahiko, you did the right thing abandoning following him - anyone that can tangle with Onoki and live to tell about it isn't to be underestimated. I've got an appointment with the Hokage later today, so I might summon you then if he has any extra questions for you."

Takahiko preened at the praise. "Make sure you bring some of that dried meat with salt you gave me last time if you call me back. I've had a craving for it for over a week now." he disappeared in a puff of smoke.

"Why do you have an appointment with gramps?" Naruko said, head tilted.

"There's a couple of reasons, one of which is to show him a new seal I made that should help out old ninja like him. And of course, I need to give him Takahiko's intel."

"Oh. That makes sense I guess… Why do you have him out collecting intel in the first place?"

Hotaru collected their now empty dishes, "It gives them something to do, so we can practise working together, and it might turn up something useful for the village, like today."

"Ah!" Naruko shouted in alarm.

Hotaru poked his head back into the room from the kitchen to see her looking at the clock.

"We're going to be late!"

---

Hotaru stepped back from his scorched, but still intact, work and looked it over. Like the hundreds of iterations before it, this structure - practice for the construction of his future home - was doomed to be destroyed in the near future. Unlike the previous iterations, Hotaru was finally satisfied with the build quality, even if the floor plan left something to be desired.

Fortunately, not having a satisfactory floor plan wouldn't actually delay the build all that much. In terms of building regulation, the village only really cared about the building footprint, height, utilities connections and any subterranean work that might be needed. What you actually did on the inside of the external walls didn't matter - if your house collapsed without sufficient cause (like a reasonably powerful jutsu hitting it), they just hit you with a fine large enough to make risking it not worth skimping on the engineering. Most people just left it up to professional builders, who could be made to wear the fine if their work was shoddy.

Hotaru had opted for a different method. While his powers were feeding him architectural design and engineering skills for the past several months, he had set about testing the limits of various construction methods for himself. Theoretical engineering was one thing, but nothing quite reassured you that your home was going to remain standing during an attack like hitting the practice versions with high powered jutsu.

The real breakthrough was when he stopped trying to make the whole thing from one piece of wood - it turned out that proper joinery was stronger than the natural forks branching off the wood created. It also helped to have controlled points of failure where stress could be released non-catastrophically.

This version was probably the toughest building that had ever been made without reinforcing seals. He'd already hit it with hurricane force winds, severe earthquakes, a flood, and most recently a powerful fire technique. The building still stood, intact, if a bit sooty. This was probably as good as he could expect to ever get, there were limits to what the materials could take, even the Yin enhanced materials he'd used here.

The important thing was that this time, the construction method had performed as well as the materials; all the floors were still level, the corners remained square, there were no leaks in the roof and everything was still in one piece.

He was just a clone, the original being in the Academy at the moment, but he could still take pride in a job well done. He could also enjoy the opportunity to wreak some destruction when the opportunity arose. Situated as he was within his own private dimension, there would be no need to hold back.

Taking a good bit of distance, Hotaru concentrated. This particular release was nowhere near combat viable yet, it still took too long to mould the chakra. This was the most complex release he'd created yet, being a Kekkei Tota of Yin and Lightning stacked on Fire, with Fire stacked on Wind. Then, just because he could, he'd stacked Yang on fire and combined it with the result.

He was calling the resulting chakra Sun release. Hotaru made several hand signs. Unlike his usual practice, these weren't just for show, this release was still difficult enough that they actually did help.

Unfortunately, the name Amaterasu was taken, so he couldn't give it to this jutsu, but fortunately there were other, less common names for the sun Goddess that were still available.

"Taiyōton: Ōhirume".Sun release: Ōhirume

The jutsu that floated over his palm, a small sphere of light that looked cheery, and warm, like he'd plucked the actual sun out of the sky; yet Hotaru knew that without the inclusion of Yin release to imbue the sphere with the property of only damaging things he designated as targets, both he and the surrounding area would already be nothing more than vapour. Well… The area would be anyway. He'd be chakra smoke, on account of being a clone.

This jutsu didn't cause the most damage per unit of chakra by a long shot. That distinction went to the recreated Rasenringu. It wasn't even the most thorough means of destroying something at his disposal. But it was by far his favourite to use, on the grounds that it was really damn cool. Pity it was so flashy and chakra intensive that he'd probably never get a chance to use it in the field.

A gentle push sent the tiny star streaking towards the house at a mind numbing speed. The walls, which had withstood the full power of a fire jutsu on the level of Uchiha Madara's Goka Messhitsu just minutes before, simply sublimated when the jutsu got within ten metres of them, a great chunk of the house was simply deleted with a titanic BOOM from the sudden and rapid expansion of the gases that had been solids just moments ago. Everything in the house outside the sublimation range immediately burst into flames. A wash of radiated heat struck him, despite being a good hundred metres away - the little star might not damage non-targets directly, but the heat of the white hot vaporised gases was entirely mundane.

The jutsu flared and expanded with a rumbling roar, like thunder from a lightning strike right next to him, and everything in that direction was washed out by the sheer brightness of the white light. Hotaru had to turn his back on it, and blink until his regeneration restored his vision. When he turned back, nothing of the house remained but a shimmering haze of superheated air.

Hotaru grinned. Having a personal dimension to play around in was definitely worth the years of preparation he'd taken to acquire it; he'd never have been able to do that in Konoha.

Looking over at the clones clashing in the distance with his version of susanoo active, he decided that he was satisfied with completing his assigned task and popped himself rather than picking up something else to do.

---

Hotaru jolted almost imperceptibly as the memories of his clone hit him, but it didn't stop him from gracefully swaying past the incoming fist of his sparring partner and executing a throw that sent the off-balance boy tumbling gently from the ring.

Takeru was one of the classmates he'd spent nearly no effort on improving the skills of. While he had a desire to become a shinobi, he put forth almost no effort beyond what was assigned in class, and his civilian parents had only signed him up to get him citizenship. He was the top place holder of Hotaru's three people most likely to drop out of the shinobi program before next year.

Frankly, matching him against Hotaru was somewhat cruel, and he suspected that Katou sensei had decided that it was better to pit him against someone who was likely going to lose anyway regardless of his opponent, than to bring down the final score of one of the top places by handing them what nearly everyone had decided at this point was an automatic loss.

Personally, Hotaru could see how he'd gotten the idea, but felt it was doing them a disservice. Their grades beyond pass or fail would ultimately not matter a whit, and they'd learn more from fighting someone better than them. He'd always made sure that he never completely outclassed the top scorers so they could improve.

People had finally caught on that he was holding back though. It was probably around the time, maybe six months ago, that he started subtly physically correcting his more inept partners' forms during spars. It was probably rude in hindsight, but some of them really sucked, and it had improved their fighting quite a bit. Most of them hadn't even noticed, the teachers on the other hand were more observant. The teachers and Shikamaru.

At this point the only opponents that still actually tried to beat him were Sasuke, Naruko, Kiba, Hinata, Takeru and humorously Shikamaru; Sasuke because he actually thought he could win, Naruko because giving up wasn't in her vocabulary, Hinata because he made sure to encourage her every chance he got, and she was such a sweetheart she didn't want to disappoint him, and Kiba and Shika because their mothers would get involved if they heard a single whisper that they hadn't even tried.

Only Kiba would usually be in actual danger of this happening, his mother being friends with Katou sensei, but Naruko had told Shika that if she caught him slacking she'd tell his mum herself, and he wasn't willing to call her bluff. Probably because she wasn't bluffing.

Takeru, though, was still putting in the effort to win out of sheer obliviousness. He wasn't even good enough to realise how bad he was. It really said something that he was physically weaker than Sakura. It said something very unflattering about the earlier year's teachers that until Hotaru started tutoring her, Naruko was worse - in skill at least. Though she at least had trained, so she'd had physical ability down.

As he made the sign of reconciliation with Takeru, Hotaru looked over at her in her own ring - where she was beating Kiba like a drum. Well, it wasn't that one sided, but he was definitely doing worse than usual.

She'd come so far so quickly under focused tutelage with someone willing to teach her discipline and the very basics, and actually explain what she needed to do, that Hotaru was starting to wonder if she was just smarter than her male counterpart. It might be worth visiting one of those timelines at some point in the distant future, just to raise one and see. He was willing to give the boy only he remembered the benefit of the doubt though, he'd had atrocious teachers.

Well, sort of. For an actually well trained genin Jiraiya's teaching style would have been excellent. But he hadn't gotten a well trained genin as a student - he'd gotten a rank beginner with a lot of luck and an overinflated ego. What he'd needed was to be spoon fed until he had the basics down, the way that small children were taught, and the way Jiraiya had taught the orphans in Ame. Forcing him to think and work things out for himself from first principles should have come afterwards, when he had a proper set of mental tools to work with.

In the third ring Chōji and Sasuke were duking it out. The larger boy was doing his best, but this was a pure taijutsu bout, and he simply wasn't on Sasuke's level in taijutsu. The match was drawing to a close already, as he was already flagging. It would be the last round of the day.

A thump carried across from the other ring where Naruko had laid Kiba out. He'd be able to give her more of a fight once Akamaru was old enough to fight with him, but the puppy wasn't even a year old yet, and was both too weak and insufficiently trained to fight. Kiba hadn't gone down without a fight however, as he'd gotten a good hit to her right eye in.

Hotaru glanced across at where the grinning Naruko was helping him up and making the reconciliation sign. In the space of that one minute the hit area had developed a nasty bruise, going through the black and blue stage, and had already almost completely faded. Uzumaki regeneration bolstered by a Gelel seal was bullshit, even on other Uzumaki that lacked his own superior healing.

He smirked smugly, poor deluded Uchiha and Hyūga, running around thinking they had the best clan just because their eyeballs were fancy. Fūinjutsu was where it was at. It was, after all, thanks to fūinjutsu that the Uzumaki would have the best eyeballs of all from this point forward.

Chōji flopped to the ground, worn out. He still wasn't used to the training seal, having been the second last to receive it before Ino, and doing by far the least aerobic exercise, because it made it harder to build calories for their jutsu.

Sasuke was the only clan heir that had neither joined him and Naruko in any of their training sessions, nor taken him up on his offer for a training seal; but he was starting to waver, he was more desperate for strength than ever, thanks to now having something to protect with the return of his cousins. Hotaru had seen that the near loss to Naruko - to whom, at the start of the year, he would have been all but untouchable - had shaken him badly, and the continuation of his unending losing streak against Hotaru himself was beginning to frustrate him too. He gave it until Naruko was able to beat him once for every loss at the longest before he caved.

The only wrench that might have been thrown in the plan to bond with his broody classmate had been Kakashi, whom he had correctly guessed was planning to offer the boy tutoring. Fortunately, he had pre-empted the problem when Kakashi came to get his resistance seal, and asked the man to hold off until he caved and joined his classmates occasionally. Kakashi hadn't hesitated to agree, given how important teamwork and helping friends was to him, and had given him a warm smile he could see even through the mask and ruffled his hair.

---

Yamanaka Ino was on a mission as she stalked through the halls of the Academy. She'd overcome her father's nefarious plan to prevent her collecting on her lunchtime kisses by simply joining Hotaru and Naruko in some of their training exercises after the Academy let out.

'Jokes on you old man, now I get to spend even more time with him.' she thought smugly, even though she was inwardly as dismayed at the amount of attention he was giving Naruko after classes, as she was awed by the sheer scale of Naruko's efforts to improve. She no longer mocked Naruko's proclamations of future Hokagedom. If training like that wasn't enough to get the hat, then it was probably going to be buried with the Third.

'Even Hinata's stepping up her game.' Her fists clenched until they turned white. She hadn't missed that the girl had started growing out her hair after overhearing Kiba asking Hotaru whether he preferred long or short hair on a girl, and she didn't think she was entirely joking when she'd claimed to be willing to share him with Naruko.

The two of them got along really well, and Hinata strongly admired Naruko for her never give up attitude. On top of that, Hotaru had made no secret that he wanted a really big family to rebuild his clan, and if Naruko made Hokage, Hinata would be a great mother figure to look after the kids.

Ino could picture it clearly in her mind's eye: Hinata, who didn't like hurting people, might take up a job as a medic-nin at the hospital, where she'd be able to spend most of her time in the village. At the end of the day Naruko would come home to find her and a bunch of red, yellow and black haired children, tucking into a warm meal, then Hotaru would arrive back from a week long mission, and they'd all run to hug him happily. Meanwhile she'd be out in the cold looking in, alone.

She snarled at her own imagined scenario.

'I won't be left behind!'

The lunchtime kisses were the biggest advantage she had right now, and she'd missed out on two in a row. One because of the teachers showing up to lead them to the remembrance service, the second, today, because he'd slipped away at lunch time for some reason before she'd finished her food.

'Not that they're having much effect on him anyway,' she thought bitterly, 'they're practically platonic, like a kiss I'd give mum and dad. I need to up the ante!'

"Aha! There you are!" she called as she spotted him at the main entrance, about to leave with Naruko. He was such a pain, always leaving from a different exit. Sometimes they weren't even doors!

Ino dashed forwards and snagged him by the crook of his elbow, dragging the surprised boy with her back into the building.

"Hey! What are you doing 'ttebayo!" Naruko shouted.

Still being dragged, Hotaru made a shadow clone.

"Go with the clone for now Naruko, I'd have needed to leave for my appointment with the Third anyway." he called back.

He turned to walk next to her, so she wouldn't need to drag him, but she didn't let go of his arm.

Seeing an empty classroom, she pulled him inside and shut the door behind her.

"So what's got you so wor-" he started to say, when Ino threw herself at him, arms flung around his neck and cut him off by covering his mouth with her own.

He blinked as his back hit the wall beside the door, and Ino took the opportunity to deepen the desperate kiss clumsily.

She grinned through the kiss when he gave in and started kissing her back, a thrill running up her spine when he gripped her hips and pulled her into him, and his hands switched to running up and down her sides.

She moaned into him, 'How is he so good at this? Has he been practising with Naruko?'

Breaking for air, not having worked out breathing through the nose yet, she decided she didn't care, so long as she got to benefit from it, and went back for more.

'Still in the running.' She thought victoriously.

---

He was being kissed, with tongue. He decided he rather enjoyed it. Usually he might have thought twice about doing this with Ino, but Naruko had left him so pent up that morning that when she'd started kissing him, he'd decided to just go with it. It wasn't like he'd be cheating on anyone or something.

Hell, even if he did count Naruko as a girlfriend, he was nearly certain she wouldn't have a problem with it, so long as he made sure she knew she wasn't going to be left behind. She certainly had no issues with him kissing Ino over her lunches. Ino was the jealous and competitive one.

She felt so soft pressed against him like this. It was bringing back to mind memories of that morning. He slid his hands around from her hips to cup her behind firmly, and Ino gave a squeaking moan.

It was the squeak that woke him up from the haze of arousal. Lifting his hands to her shoulders he pushed her away gently. It was disorienting, he'd never felt like that before. He realised if they kissed any more right now he was going to do something that he didn't think either of them were really ready for; something that would get him shanked by Inoichi. It was harder to hold back with Ino than with Naruko.

With Naruko he'd kept himself from pushing forward because, deep down, she was still afraid that he'd abandon her. He didn't want her to do something she was uncomfortable with because she thought he might leave if she stopped him. Ino on the other hand, was trying to win him over using feminine wiles. He was perfectly okay with that. He didn't want to start something with her only for her to drop him for Sasuke though, so he'd decided to wait for her to make up her mind.

Idly, as he ran his tongue along his lips, still tasting her on them, he realised that the metaphorical tap in his mind for 'kissing' had hit the limit of human skill quite a while ago. He could always tell when they'd done so and crossed into superhuman territory, and clearly some skills had much greater depths to tap than others.

Case in point, he'd had the kissing tap less than a year and had done no more practice than a peck on the cheek each weekday, and it was already maxed out; in contrast he'd had the chakra control skill for more than a decade, and it was still going strong, despite its flow rate being raised regularly and for prolonged periods through training.

"That's enough for now." he said, breathing slightly heavily.

Ino placed a hand on his chest, playing coyly with his shirt. "Are you sure I couldn't convince you to stay a little longer?" She leaned in as if to start another kiss, but came to a halt when he gripped her by the ponytail and prevented her from closing the final few centimetres, and ended up pouting.

"Sorry Ino, I've got a meeting with the Hokage." This was true, but he left out that he had another hour to play with.

Ino sighed and backed off. "Fine. We're doing this again later though."

Hotaru ran a hand through his hair. "I'm not sure we should. You still haven't given up on Sasuke, and I don't think you'd really be happy sharing with Naruko either."

Ino scowled and looked away.

"Think about it." Hotaru said, tucking a lock of hair behind her ear. "We still have plenty of time to make decisions like this - we haven't even started the final two years of the Academy yet. There's no need to rush."

Hotaru left Ino to her thoughts and made his way towards home at high speed. Relying primarily on the fact that, any of his fans that might have stuck around would be too slow to follow him, to conceal the location of his house. 'That was dangerous,' he thought as he flicked open his bedroom window and hopped in, locking it behind him. 'I nearly threw my restraint away there. Anyone might have come in. Not good.' he slapped his cheeks. 'I need to find a way to deal with this… I… I suppose I could always try that . My past life seemed to think it'd be a good idea.'

---

Forty minutes later Hotaru was making his way towards the Hokage's office eating slices of lemon covered in honey, trying to drown out the memory of a foul flavour.

'That was a bloody terrible idea!' he thought for the hundredth time. 'My past life obviously didn't think that through. Not that I can talk. Stupid!'

He'd retreated to his Kamui dimension and set up a small lodge on one of the rock formations there, at which point he'd laid down a futon and made a female kage bunshin, one that looked suspiciously like Ino. He'd been short sighted and horny enough to heed his past life's views that sex with a shadow clone would count as masturbating - something he'd also never done himself.

He'd tried a sixty-nine, which had worked out wonderfully at first. He'd found giving oral sex to a girl, even if it was technically a chakra construct, to be fairly enjoyable, and the amateurish and fairly unenthusiastic head he'd received in return was… eye opening. Definitely something he wanted to happen regularly. He'd even gotten an 'oral sex' tap out of the deal.

Then the clone had popped.

It turned out that a sixty nine with yourself felt more like giving yourself a blowjob than it did receiving one. It also turned out that, not ever having finished while conscious before, he hadn't known the right time to warn his clone, if he would have even thought to. It had gotten a mouthful of his release, and hadn't liked the flavour one bit.

At which point it decided to make that his problem and popped, leaving him with a phantom taste in his mouth.

Unfortunate mishap aside, Hotaru had been greatly enjoying himself up until that point. And as terrible an idea as rushing into it was, he was already working on solutions.

Clearly a custom version of the shadow clone would be necessary. Already hand sign combinations that might get the result he wanted were drifting into his head. Turning the idea over and refining it.

It would need the ability to think for itself, but to not return memories to him. Hmmm better yet, if he could build it as a clone of someone else using replicated chakra, with something like the Yamanaka mind destruction jutsu to allow an included mind clone to direct it to do things it otherwise wouldn't, and then a custom dispel structure, so as not return the memories to anyone.

'Hmm, this might actually be turning into a pretty awesome infiltration jutsu idea. A clone of someone else that doesn't know it's a clone; or that the things it's doing aren't what it would usually do, because the decisions are being made by me.'

That would be a difficult jutsu to get just right, and he'd need a way to communicate select bits of data back without sending the memories as a whole, but he was confident he could make it within a week at most. He could wait that long, provided he didn't let Naruko sleep in his bed again.

At least the second problem was easy to fix. He just needed to eat a bunch of fruit for the next few days with the intent to 'train his flavour'. This was worth doing, Hotaru thought, despite not having much of a sweet tooth, because eventually he wanted to try those things with Naruko, and possibly Ino or Hinata, and he was certain they'd be a lot more willing to have repeat sessions if he tasted good.

"Hello dear," the middle aged kunoichi behind the reception desk in the Hokage's office building said. "Uzumaki Hotaru right? The hair's a dead give away. You're right on time, just wait outside the office door, I'll call through and he'll call you in when he's ready for you."

"Thank you." Hotaru said with a smile and a little nod, and proceeded up the stairs and into the little corridor that curled around the office.

It was a short wait. Presumably whoever was in there before him had left via the window, as they didn't leave through the door.

Inside the room, Gemma and Raido were once again the only occupants besides Hiruzen himself.

"Hotaru kun! Welcome back." He smiled genially. "That was a lovely party you threw for Naruko. I enjoyed myself greatly."

Hotaru laughed. "She would have smacked me upside the head if I'd neglected to invite her 'gramps'."

Hiruzen chuckled, but then leaned forward, elbows on the desk. "Now then, I assume that since you requested a meeting with the same guards as our last meeting in my office, that something has changed?"

"Yes, Hokage-sama. They've developed into a full doujutsu. I can't say for certain that they're finished changing, I still get some itching in the region occasionally, but they seem to have stabilised."

Hiruzen's widened eyes regarded him almost eagerly. "I assume you don't mind letting me have a look?"

Hotaru nodded, and closed his eyes, sending chakra to them. When they were opened, they looked nothing like any doujutsu Hiruzen had seen before; a shimmering pale blue iris, lacking any pupil, that seemed to shine from within with dancing points of light.

"Fascinating," he breathed, leaning in for a better look, "There hasn't been a new doujutsu born in centuries as far as I know. I assume that you can see chakra now?"

"Yes sir. My eyes seem to be integrated with the Uzumaki Kagura Shingan hijutsu. It activates automatically when I use them, though I can still use it on its own."

This was in fact, by design on his part. It was a pain to manage two such expansive sets of input at the same time, and neither was capable of fully replacing the other, so while he'd been training to remove the obvious veining and the blindspot from the Byakugan half of the doujutsu, he'd also trained to integrate the two inputs into one cohesive whole.

"When the eyes are active it's like my vision merges with the Kagura Shingan and an oblong spheroidal region surrounding myself experiences an incredible increase in detail. Inside the sphere I get a great sense of how chakra is moulded, including elemental transformation, and I can even sense the chakra network."

"Interesting. How big would you say your sphere is?"

"Twenty six point two four metres in radius assuming a sphere centred on the bridge of my nose."

Genma snorted in the background at the precise measurement. Hotaru rolled his eyes at him.

"I didn't include the oblong portion of the sphere because it turns out it's actually a second focal point. I can move it around inside the range of the Kagura Shingan to get extra detail on an area, though I haven't been able to extend it anywhere near the full range, only about ten kilometres."

Hiruzen's eyes widened. Only ten kilometres?! That was almost as far as Hiashi's byakugan.

He coughed delicately, "Only ten? I see. How much farther do you think you can sense with the base technique?"

Hotaru scratched his cheek. "It's a bit hard to tell accurately, I'd need to set up distance markers and see how far I could see, but roughly sixty clicks?" It was actually sixty five by this point, but it never hurt to keep a little extra up one's sleeve in case it got written down and stolen.

Genma's Senbon hit the ground.

"I was given to understand that your mother and Kushina were only able to sense barely a tenth of that distance?" he questioned, hiding his shock with the skill of a pro politician.

"Ah, yeah, neither of them were natural sensors. The Kagura Shingan is basically amplified by your natural ability. I'm not sure about Kushina sama, but Mum in particular was not that great at it. She once had to meditate for minutes at a time just to locate my tenketsu for a seal."

"And you can see the tenketsu easily?"

"Sense them, yes. They're like little fountains of chakra pushing through the skin. They look a little like if you have water flowing from a pipe upwards when the pipe is underwater itself, making a little bump in the surface."

"Hmm. That makes sense. Still sixty kilometres is rather incredible."

"According to the records I have available, it's only impressive because of how young I've managed it. I've been training it pretty hard. Elder Uzumaki were on another level though. The records say that Asahina sama, at the age of one hundred and sixty five years was able to sense all the way to Konoha from Uzu."

Raido let out a low whistle.

"Truly the stronger shinobi of sensei's generation were unbelievable monsters by our standards. Very well Hotaru kun, did any additional abilities manifest along with the sight?"

"Two that I can be certain of, Hokage sama. While the eyes are active I'm able to trivially analyse and decipher patterns and codes - which annoyingly has led to my needing to update all of my seal encryptions because they no longer felt secure."

Hotaru had actually found that ability in one of the eyes on Danzo's arm, once he'd awakened its mangekyo. With it he'd even made strong progress on deciphering the encrypted portions of the sharingan template, and expected that before long he'd be able to encode new complete jutsu into a bloodline using that method.

"The second ability, well… Take a look at the office wall."

Hiruzen glanced to the right and was shocked to see a seal just appear where he was looking and start releasing glowing sparks that faded before hitting the floor. Shortly, the seal burned out and disappeared.

"The second ability is that I can project seals, or well, really any jutsu I'm good enough at, to any location within one of my focal points."

"So what you're saying is," Raido started slowly, "That, with nothing more than a look, you can cover anything you want in explosive tags within a range of ten kilometres!?"

"… I suppose I could do that, if I had no imagination." Hotaru sniffed, making Genma and the Hokage laugh.

"A highly fūinjutsu focused doujutsu then, and in the hands of an Uzumaki no less." Hiruzen said pensively. "We'll need to check for a lineage factor."

"Already checked with fūinjutsu sir. The lineage factor for the standard Uzumaki bloodline has changed drastically. It's almost certainly inheritable."

"Excellent." Hiruzen said happily, then sighed. "I'm sorry to do this to you, but I'm going to order you not to use it outside of secure private areas until you advance to chūnin rank. You may tell your genin team mates and sensei when you get them, but if you're forced to use the doujutsu where an enemy can see it while on a mission, you are to do everything you can to ensure they don't survive to report it. If the other villages find out about another great doujutsu being born into Konoha, we'll have assassins and kidnappers growing from the very woodwork."

"Understood Hokage sama. Fortunately it'll be a few years yet before it's an issue. I'm sure I can resist the temptation to show off until then."

Hiruzen laughed. "Indeed my boy. Now, speaking of showing off, Hatake Kakashi showed me the new elemental techniques you discovered, and mentioned that you told him you found them while trying to combine elements. Did you have any luck? I confess that I myself have made the attempt before to no avail."

"I actually did. Although I ended up having to cheat at first."

"Oh? How do you cheat at elemental combinations?" He leaned in, intensely curious.

"I made a shadow clone and had one clone produce each element."

Hiruzen hastily caught his falling pipe. "Brilliant!" he breathed.

'Sorry Naruto, I stole your trick.'

"You can't just mash two releases together though. You need to get the right ratio and then figure out how to actually transform the mixed chakra. Like the way you grind wind against itself to sharpen it."

"I see. Thank you for the information, and the method. I'll ask you not to tell me any more just yet, I'd like to try discovering more for myself. Learning new jutsu is something of a hobby of mine, you see. Perhaps we could share notes later."

He slumped then, "It'll have to be at least a few months I'm afraid. Between fending off the depredations of the Great Enemy and my age, I don't get to spend as much time training as I would like."

"Great enemy?" Hotaru asked with a tilted head.

"Paperwork." Hiruzen said darkly.

Hotaru giggled. "How come you don't just have a kage bunshin help out?"

"I used to," he admitted, "but as one gets older and the body frailer, one finds they have less chakra to spare for such things. The point where I realised that the difficulty of maintaining clones was beginning to exceed the difficulty of the work itself was the point I chose to retire the first time around."

"Huh… You're really going to like the second item on my list of things to bring up with you."

"As you're no doubt aware, my uncle Hayate has recently recovered from his consumptive lung disease."

"I am aware. The means of his recovery was something I was about to bring up myself."

Hotaru reached into his pocket and pulled out one of the artificial Gelel stones. Placing it on the desk.

"The seal used to cure Hayate was the incomplete version. I've actually already replaced it with a new one. It's much safer now."

Hotaru nodded at the stone, "That's a result of an experiment that went very right. It's basically amber made from sap that's had the life force of multiple trees concentrated inside it. It's safe to touch by the way."

The Third picked it up and turned it over in his hand, examining it, and probing it with a small diagnostic jutsu. He looked back at Hotaru.

"And this has to do with how you healed your uncle?"

"Yes, although I didn't heal him exactly. What I did was use fūinjutsu to attune the life force of the stone - which I sealed inside him - to his own life force. It gave a huge boost to his immune system, and the medication did the rest. The real breakthrough was when I figured out how to prevent it from also boosting the disease."

"Remarkable. I gather from your earlier comment that you believe, with physical energy being run off excess life force, that using this technique on me will allow me the full use of my chakra once again?"

"That had been my thinking sir, yes. You really don't miss a beat, do you?"

He laughed, "I do try my boy, and I didn't stay the leader of a ninja village for most of my life by not paying attention when people talk… You gave this to your uncle some months ago I believe, is there a reason that you waited so long to bring it forward?"

"I've only recently rendered the process safe. The version used by uncle Hayate required each strain of the disease to be added as an exception manually, and I hadn't yet worked out how to make exceptions for cancer cells either, so there was risk of those going out of control."

Hiruzen himself couldn't think of any kind of seal that could do such a thing automatically. Cancer cells were all different after all. "How on earth did you manage that kind of selectivity from a seal?"

"By changing the way I approached the problem. The new seal excludes everything, and things need to be added to a whitelist. It has the exceptions for all the common gut flora and such built into the seal, and the patients DNA is then added via a drop of blood that's been filtered for contaminants via the mystic palm. Cancer cells by definition have different DNA, so they get excluded."

"Brilliant!" Hiruzen's eyes lit up. "Hm, but we will need to note that they aren't safe for pregnant women."

"How many stones do you have available?"

"Including that one? Just seven at the moment. Though I have already given out a few more to friends and family."

Rock Lee was the first. He trained even harder than Naruko, and Hotaru had felt it unfair that his lacking regeneration would mean she would leave him in the dust if things were left as they were. It was better this way; Naruko would have another training partner that could keep up.

He'd branched out to a few more classmates from there.

Hiruzen pondered who would be the best possible recipients for a second wind. There were a few obvious standouts, and of course his team mates. He strongly suspected however, that Koharu and Homura were a lot more aware of Danzo's machinations than he was, and wasn't sure he wanted to reward them like this at the moment.

Hotaru cleared his throat, drawing the Hokage's attention back to him. "I actually wanted to request access to more medical texts at the library while I was here. The seal I initially envisioned would have also been capable of restoring any missing body parts, but the only viable method I came up with for restoring a missing limb doesn't really work when I try to automate it."

Hiruzen sighed tiredly. Of course he'd figured out how to restore limbs too. Gods save him from precocious geniuses.

"Why don't you apply this seal for me so that I can get a start on my paperwork? I'll arrange for some retired shinobi at a later date for a demonstration, and we can talk about your limb replacement jutsu then."

Hiruzen scribbled a quick note to the librarian granting him full access to any medical texts in the library and stamped it with his seal - because clearly Hotaru was a golden goose intent on laying eggs, and Hiruzen wasn't going to deny him what he needed to continue doing so.

"This will allow you to access the books you need. Additionally, I think I'll send out feelers to my old student. Advances in medicine like this might just be enough to lure her back here, at least for a while."

Hotaru bowed. "Thank you sir."

"On a related note, the village would like to purchase another six of your diagnostic gloves for the hospital." he said, getting a nod in return.

"I can fill that order easily enough. If you'd like to remove your robe and lift your shirt sir, the seal is best placed between the shoulder blades."

Hotaru made quick work of the seal, using sleight of hand to swap in a real Gelel stone for maximum effect.

"Oh! That's the good stuff!" the Hokage stretched. "I feel a good ten years younger already."

"Just be careful. The seal can't actually reverse ageing in its current form, though it might slow it down."

Hiruzen laughed and patted his head. "Thank you Hotaru kun. Was there anything else you needed to cover today?"

"Yes sir, Takehiko, my summons was flying over Iwa and reported back this morning tha-"

He never got to finish his sentence as a pall of dread and an oppressive chakra crashed through the village. He spun around, eyes flashing into his doujutsu, where he zoned in on the source of the feeling to see Naruko, next to one of the training implements he'd created for her - now smashed on the ground - standing on all fours with a bubbling tail of red chakra slowly growing from her raised behind and a vicious red eyed snarl on her face.

Beside him, the Hokage was gone, already halfway across the village.

---

Chapter 16

---

Chapter 16

It was happening again! Hinata fought to keep her concentration on the spar she was having with Hotaru and off of his chakra. It wasn't as easy as it sounded. His chakra was a mystery that had consumed her attention for as long as she'd known him.

It was dancing, or at least that's how she liked to think of it. The usual placid flow as it sped through his coils on seemingly impossible paths replaced by rippling stripes, appearing to alternate between narrow bands of intense concentration, shining like stars in her byakugan, and swells of darkness that barely held any chakra at all.

It was the movement of these bands that equally baffled and fascinated her. Not the speed with which they moved, although that was incredible in itself - Hinata had finally found the answer to that question a few weeks ago when she had first joined him and Naruko in their evening training sessions.

The abnormal speed that Hotaru's chakra circulated with, and she supposed Naruko's to a much lesser degree, was due to the strange breathing technique he'd started teaching her.

It had been the first, and if he was to be believed, most important of the many exercises he'd insisted on. When he'd first claimed she didn't know how to breathe properly, she'd been understandably confused - it was breathing! How could you do it wrong? But it was hard to argue with his logic.

"We were taught better ways to walk, better ways to move when fighting, to balance. Why wouldn't we need to learn to breathe better too? Breathing is so simple you do it automatically, yes, but it's also the most important thing you do. You can't even stop for more than a few minutes without dying. Respiration is the foundation of life itself, the source of the power your body uses to move."

Hinata had only been practising for a few weeks, she wasn't even close to keeping up the breathing technique at all times the way Hotaru insisted she should, and she was already feeling noticeably stronger than she was when she started.

It was no wonder Hotaru never lost in spars at the Academy, if he'd been doing these exercises for years.

No, the speed wasn't the object of her current fascination, it was the way the little beads, for lack of a better descriptor, his chakra was currently formed into were darting in and out of existence!

It was nothing that couldn't be seen in his normal chakra flow, but it was so much clearer to see when there were points of contrast in his chakra like this. The beads would reach his tenketsu and then vanish, moving off in a non-existent direction that she could almost, but not quite follow with her byakugan. They would reappear from that same odd not-direction at the next chakra point, seamlessly rejoining the flowing dance of bright points rushing through him.

It wasn't just him anymore either, Naruko's chakra had begun moving in that same odd manner near the start of the year - much more noticeably, since Naruko's chakra had the same opacity as everyone who wasn't Hotaru seemed to. More even, since hers occasionally had a pulse of red injected into them from around her stomach, which mixed to purple with the chakra in her coils before fading into the normal blue and caused the entire chakra network to shine more brightly in her sight for a little while.

Hinata knew that if she asked, he'd probably tell her what was happening. She chose not to. She wanted to work it out for herself. She'd already seen the benefits of doing so; the constant strain she'd been putting on her eyes (something that would be bad for a civilian's eyes, but was a different story when dōjutsu and chakra came into play) since she noticed the change in Naruko had already strengthened them. She hadn't yet managed to follow one of the beads away to wherever it went, but while straining to see what was happening at those points, she'd suddenly realised that she could see his tenketsu.

Her father had actually smiled at her when she'd told him! That was when he'd finally given her permission to join Naruko and Hotaru for their training. Occasionally.

Thud!

Hotaru's clone punished her for her inattention by grabbing her overextended arm and flipping her onto her back, the hard impact with the ground driving the air from her lungs. Hinata knew that he'd deliberately softened her landing, but the impact still hurt.

She lay there wheezing for a moment, Hotaru's clone standing over her and watching as she collected herself. If she'd been at home, she'd have already been punished for taking so long to retake a ready position.

Hinata knew that her father was harsh with her training out of worry for her safety; she wouldn't have the protection of the caged bird seal in the field after all - if she laid there feeling sorry for herself every time she was hurt, an enemy would take advantage. Still… she wished he would be a little more gentle with her. Hotaru hurt her during training too, but only a little, enough that she'd try her hardest to not get hit, without causing her real pain the way her clan did when she trained with them.

She hadn't really understood the difference until she began sparring with him, and with Rock Lee, and occasionally even Might Gai - someone even her father respected for his prowess. He was a little weird, but very kind, and Hinata found she liked him.

Now that she had seen how training was normally conducted, she was slowly growing to resent the training time she spent with her clan. She tried to tell herself that it wasn't just her, that it was just that the jyūken was more painful than an ordinary blow, but deep down she knew that it wasn't true. They were hurting her on purpose, because she was a disappointment. Because she was weak - and that hurt more than any blow they had ever struck her body with.

As her mood started to turn dark without her noticing, a shadow fell over her and Hotaru's face came into what would have been her field of view had she not had the byakugan active. As was usually the case when he was looking at her, he was wearing a gentle smile that made her upper body flush with warmth.

Hotaru, or his clone really, but he insisted they were basically the same thing as the real him, leaned down and reached his hand out.

"Sorry about that Hinata, I might have thrown you a little hard there." She took his hand and he pulled her to her feet. He didn't let go once she was up, however, keeping a gentle grip on her hand as he looked deep into her active byakugan.

Hinata fought to remain conscious, she was determined not to embarrass herself and her clan by fainting over a little hand holding.

"Are you feeling alright?" He asked. "Your chakra was feeling a little… dark there for a bit."

She felt somehow, and not for the first time, as if he was looking through her in a way no byakugan had ever managed, like he could see her soul, and every dirty little thought and insecurity.

It was something she only ever felt when he made prolonged eye contact with her byakugan active; she felt naked in front of him in a way she never felt around anyone else. It was scary. Embarrassing… but, strangely, freeing. Exhilarating even. Her mind naturally drifted to the night before, when she had touched herself to the memory of the last time he'd looked into her like this; imagining that she'd been naked before him in truth, and he'd been inspecting her before he took her.

'Oh gods! What if he actually can see what I'm thinking right now!? He'll think I'm a disgusting pervert!' Hinata panicked internally, and slightly irrationally. It wasn't like he could actually see her thoughts, after all. She struggled mightily not to hyperventilate, her vision going a bit dark around the edges.

Strong arms wrapped around her shoulders, folding her into a hug that was warmer than any hug with a still living human had any right to be. Hinata's depressively spiralling thought processes crashed to a halt, as her mind tried to come to grips with the new and novel situation.

Chakra, so thin and light that it was almost invisible even to her byakugan, looking like nothing so much as a slight heat shimmer carrying aloft exceptionally fine glitter, wafted from the clone and enclosed her frozen stiff body. It passed through her clothes, soaking through first the fabric to dance tantalisingly over her skin, then through her skin itself to soak into her muscles, where it began to knead.

Hinata melted into the clone's embrace, panic forgotten. She didn't know what this technique was, but she didn't want it to end. Ever. The chakra was still dancing, both on her skin and inside her - and it was so warm! It was like he was stroking her everywhere while also massaging her sore muscles at the same time - all while she relaxed into a hot bath and enjoyed the best, most caring hug she'd received since her mother passed away.

An eternity or an instant later - Hinata couldn't have said which if you paid her, the chakra receded, and she was left with nothing but a (still admittedly wonderful) hug. Hotaru peeled her practically limp body away from himself to look her in the face once more.

"Feel better now?" He asked.

Hinata thought she might have vacantly nodded, but wasn't sure. He continued speaking regardless, so she assumed she must have replied.

"Why don't we take a small break? You can rest your byakugan a little, recover some chakra - get your yang breathing back under control. We can pick back up in ten minutes."

"What was that!?"

"What was what?"

"The thing you did with your chakra! I've never felt anything like that before!"

"Oh, that was a new medical technique I thought up a few days ago. It's basically a chakra massage. Did you like it?"

Hinata immediately pictured him using that jutsu on a stranger.

"You can't use that on other people!" She said, a little louder than she'd strictly intended.

"Was it that bad? The clone I tested it on thought it felt pretty nice." Hotaru sounded a little defensive.

"It feels too nice! You can't use that on just anyone, it's indecent!"

"Ho~~!" Hotaru drew out the sound and peered at her slyly. "It feels too nice to use on other people, huh? So I can still use it on you then?"

"I-I, T-That is-" Hinata stuttered out, but whatever she was going to say, he'd never find out, as at that moment a titanic surge of chakra crashed into the pair, rolling over them in a tide of crimson tinged hatred.

It took Hinata a moment to realise that the reddish tinge everything had suddenly taken on was caused by a haze of red chakra pouring out from the original Naruko who was currently shining in her byakugan like a crimson star in her byakugan, absently she noted a streak of brightly burning blue chakra heading towards them at blistering speed from the direction of the village proper.

Reflexively, she deactivated her dōjutsu to protect her eyes from the glare, turning around to look at Naruko normally. She was shocked to find that she could still clearly see the ruddy chakra clearly with her normal eyes - although she was much less bright, and the red haze was gone.

The chakra didn't look like any she'd ever seen before. Aside from being red, it was dense. So dense that it no longer even looked like the same substance that she ofttimes used to see Naruko blast glowing blue clouds of into the classroom; instead of a nearly entirely transparent gas, this chakra looked like a bubbling gel, thick and decidedly physical.

It was forming around Naruko like a sinister cloak, long ears shaping themselves from the top of her head and a thick tail just beginning to rise from her rear. It seemed pretty caustic too, already she could see places where Naruko's outfit was beginning to char.

Hinata barely had time to register what was happening before everything seemed to happen all at once. The Hotaru clones moved. In an instant, every clone of Naruko, many of which had begun to bubble as well, had popped.

The result of this was an explosion of red chakra from the original, whatever shape the coating of chakra was assuming snapped into completion as all the red chakra built up in the clones returned to the whole. The next thing to occur was the third Hokage crashing into the scene, a deadly serious look on his face, at that same moment that a clone halfway between the old man's landing spot and Naruko flickered momentarily and then stomped the ground and clapped his hands together.

Something golden shot from Hotaru's back and chest into the ground, and as a snarling Naruko lifted one shrouded hand as if to swing, burst from the ground from several points surrounding the girl. They snaked through the air with blinding speed, binding Naruko's every limb faster than Hinata could even track without her byakugan, they were so fast that their eruption from the earth and the moment they snapped taught cutting off the flow of that awful malice filled chakra seemed almost simultaneous.

The third, whom Hinata now realised was the blue streak that had been flying across the village with such blistering speed, his chakra shining brighter than she'd ever seen it before, seemed to relax - just a little - as the chains bound her friend. He still looked deadly serious, however.

Before anyone had a chance to say anything, Might Gai blurred into the clearing kicking up a plume of dust as he slid along the ground, attempting, for some reason, to arrest his awesome momentum without using chakra to grip the ground. Taking in the situation in an instant, he gave Naruko a solemn, almost sad look.

Like the Hokage, he seemed to recognise the jutsu Hotaru used to suppress Naruko, though he seemed to have a lot more faith in its efficacy than the old man, judging by how much more relieved he looked. Now that the jutsu was still, Hinata had a moment to examine it, and saw that it was some kind of glowing golden chain made of chakra.

Two of the Hokage's guards landed next to the old man a moment later, right as Hotaru did a complicated whirl with his arms and gathered the chains into some kind of bundle which he formed into a single thick chain that fed through a glowing chakra ring that he formed around it in place and then staked into the ground.

The end result was a heavy chain extending from between his shoulder blades, through the ring, which then branched and led into the ground, leaving Hotaru free to walk towards Naruko, more chain extending from his back as he went.

"Careful Hotaru-kun!" The Hokage exclaimed, "This isn't something you can-" he cut off, stunned, as Hotaru pushed his hand through the cloak to no adverse effect, placed it on her belly, and the red cloak, which was still straining futilely against the chains, was sucked away. The chains hung loose for an instant, then shrunk to keep Naruko bound.

Hotaru lifted his arm to the now lucid (and very confused) Naruko's mouth, and a green haze covered his skin.

"Quickly, suck on the chakra, before it manages to push more chakra through the seal!"

Naruko squawked and went to ask a question, but Hotaru cut her off.

"Naruko! Questions later! Suck. Now!"

Naruko put her mouth over his arm and her cheeks caved in, clearly sucking. Her cheeks were beet red. So were Hinata's.

Hinata reactivated her byakugan now that the red chakra was gone, and saw that the green was flowing into Naruko, flooding her body and causing her currently purple chakra network to swell with a flood of new blue. Hinata realised she'd never seen Naruko anywhere close to as low as she had been a moment ago, close to chakra exhaustion even.

Surprisingly, even though Naruko - who Hinata would have given the edge on chakra capacity between the two of them, was now miraculously approaching full chakra, Hotaru's didn't appear to be diminishing at all.

'No, that's not right,' Hinata realised, 'It is draining, but more is flowing into his coils from that weird direction. The entry point is the same as where the red chakra comes from in Naruko… I wonder if they're related?'

Hinata focused hard on that in-rushing of chakra, trying to follow it back to the source, she was straining her eyes which were starting to hurt again - she'd not given them but a few moments rest since she was last examining Hotaru's coils after all. She was about to give up for now and shut them off, when suddenly something seemed to twang in her mind, and she felt like some kind of tension was released.

Abruptly, she was able to trace the chakra back to its source, though doing so caused everything else to go blurry. At the other end she found an absolutely massive sphere of chakra, it was the same beautiful translucent blue as Hotaru's own chakra, only brighter and denser than any chakra she'd ever imagined possible before, surpassing even the red bunny eared cloak Naruko had donned moments ago.

Pulling her vision back with an awed gasp, she noted right before everything came back into focus that Hotaru and Naruko both had some kind of second chakra network sitting just a little way into that strange direction. That answered the question of the chakra that seemed to pop in and out of existence, although it opened many others; such as " HOW?!"

She turned her sight to Naruko, who was now being checked over by the Hokage; the old man had crouched in front of her and lifted her shirt to examine some kind of seal on her belly.

Focussing her sight on the source of Naruko's red pulses was even easier now that she'd already done it once, once again her vision panned away from reality, and looked into what seemed to be a dark aqueduct of some kind? There were pipes flowing with both red and blue chakra mounted along the tops of the walls, which seemed to run away from her in the not-direction she'd shifted her sight in to see them in the first place.

Confused, Hinata swept her gaze along the passage until she saw a giant cage come into focus, and behind the bars, a source of that hateful red chakra so intense that it eclipsed Hotaru's chakra sphere the same way that the sphere eclipsed her own reserves. Her eyes adjusted quickly to the glare, which despite having been so bright in the real world, seemed much more manageable here in the aqueduct and the chakra resolved into a huge, extremely enraged Nine-tailed fox.

'Oh,' she realised numbly. 'They weren't bunny ears then.'

A second later, the fox paused in its wrathful thrashing, seemed to notice her, and roared angrily in her direction. Hinata shrieked, falling onto her back, byakugan instinctively deactivated.

When she gathered her wits and managed to look around, she noticed she was now the centre of attention. She blushed and stood up, only to find there was a warm, damp patch now on her pants that was spreading down her pant legs uncomfortably.

Mortified, she looked down and realised she'd wet herself when the fox roared at her.

Tears began to seep unbidden from her eyes, but a huge hand landed on her shoulder, and she looked up to see Gai smiling down at her understandingly.

"Don't worry, too much about a little accident, young Hinata!" Gai gave her a little pat and a thumbs up, "I've seen battle hardened veterans thrice your age outright soil themselves in the face of the malice you just experienced. Nobody thought less of them for it, they will certainly think no less of an academy student for losing control."

"My father won't see it like that!" Hinata said, subdued. "Hyūga must always bear themselves with dignity."

Gai frowned and went to speak, but was cut off when a globe of warm soapy water sprung up around her and began to scrub before pulling away, leaving her, and her clothes, completely clean and dry.

"Hey! That's Hotaru's bathing jutsu! You never said you taught it to Gramps!"

"Huh, actually, it's not. That jutsu used a completely different seal sequence to my version. Weird how the end result turned out so similar."

"Indeed," the Hokage mused, looking much more like the genial old man she remembered than he had the last time she'd focussed her attention on him. "It's always fascinating to realise how very many different paths one can take to reach the same goal. It's a good thing, I think, else life would be dreadfully dull by the time one reached my advanced age. Although I must say, I'm still feeling better right now than I have in decades. That new substance of yours is quite remarkable."

"Hah! Just wait till you see the finished version. It's going to blow your mind!"

The Third chuckled. "I'll look forward to it then"

"What's going on?!" Naruko burst out, finally having had enough. "What the hell was that weird chakra?!"

The Third sighed, seeming to age right in front of them.

"I suppose I can't keep it from all of you after an incident like that."

"On the day you were born, Naruko, as you know, the nine-tailed fox attacked the village, and was stopped by the Fourth Hokage. You, and all of your peers, were told that the fox was killed."

He paused, looking into Naruko's vulnerable face.

"That was a lie. The tailed beasts cannot truly be killed to my knowledge. They simply disperse for a time, perhaps a few years at most, if they are destroyed, and then reform, as good as new.

"The Fourth Hokage was aware of this, and so, in order to prevent the fox from simply returning for revenge in a few years, he sealed the fox away, in the only vessel on hand that could contain it."

"Me." Naruko's voice sounded broken.

Hotaru stepped up to her and wrapped his arms around her shoulders.

"You." The Hokage said. "A newborn baby whose umbilical cord had recently been cut, someone whose chakra coils had yet to finish forming, so that they could form around the fox's incredible chakra."

"Why me? Why didn't you tell me!? All those times I asked why everyone hated me!" Naruko was shouting by the end of her question.

Hinata noticed with some curiosity that Hotaru's gaze had sharpened on the Hokage at that from his position behind Naruko, he looked expectant, anticipatory even.

"I'm afraid you were the only option. None of the other babies born that night survived the exposure to the kyūbi's killing intent. The Fourth's last request to me was for you to be seen as a hero for your role in containing the fox.

Hotaru's face tightened just slightly. Most would probably miss it, it was that small a change, but Hinata caught it - all Hyūga underwent extensive training in micro-expressions and body language. He looked angry. Hinata had never seen him look actually angry before, but she decided that she definitely didn't like it.

"Perhaps we should move this discussion to somewhere more private? We're about to have a significant amount of company." Hotaru's voice carried an undercurrent of tension.

"Ah. Yes, perhaps you're right. Genma, Raido, please escort Naruko, Hinata and Hotaru back to my office. I think I will need to remain here to address the incoming shinobi response to feeling the fox's chakra again. Gai-san, were you in a public location before this incident?"

"No, Hokage-sama, I was observing the youthful Lee's training progress discreetly in one of the other academy training grounds!"

"Then, if you don't mind, you were here supervising the first attempts for Naruko to access the Fox's chakra on my orders."

"Understood, Hokage-sama."

They'd been ushered too far away for Hinata to hear anything further after that point. Genma and Raido took them indirectly to the Hokage's office, only narrowly avoiding the rush of jōnin and chūnin heading for the training ground.

Hinata wondered at first about the delayed reaction, but then realised they must have gathered first to organise a response, and then, downgraded the urgency when the Kyūbi's chakra cut off, assuming the third had handled it - that was nowhere near as many ninja as she would have expected to turn up for a fight with the actual kyūbi.

When they reached the Hokage's office, Genma directed them straight through the window, and they settled in to wait. And wait… and wait, eventually, Hinata's shoulder was shaken by Genma, and she snapped to alertness and looked up to see that the Hokage and Naruko had already concluded their chat, and the sniffling girl was being comforted by Hotaru. Outside, the sun was setting.

' I fell asleep!' she realised with mortification, 'I fell asleep in the Hokage's office!!'

She scrambled to her feet, brushing her clothes flat frantically while trying to bow repeatedly, her tongue stumbling over an apology. Today had been an awful day! She'd embarrassed herself in front of the Hokage twice!

The Third chuckled. "Don't worry about it, Hinata-chan. You've had a tiring day."

He looked around, faking checking for eavesdroppers, "Just between you and me," he continued in a faux whisper, "I myself have conked out on that particular couch on more than a few occasions."

He chuckled again, and she let herself relax again a little bit, giving a tentative smile.

"You've not missed all that much. I only got back from soothing the ruffled feathers of the village a short while ago. I have been answering Naruko's question on her… condition, as best I could, and decided to let you sleep since some of them she might have felt private. She is, of course, welcome to tell you herself, if she chooses to. If she chooses not to, however, I ask only that you respect her decision and not press the matter.

"Of course, Hokage-sama!" Hinata said with a bow, hands clasped in front of her respectfully.

"All you need to know of what we've covered so far is that I passed a law following the Kyūbi attack forbidding anybody to spread the knowledge that Naruko was its jailer in the hopes of preserving her ability to make friends in her own generation. Thus, you may not tell others about her status as a jinchūriki without Naruko's express permission, or my own. Is that clear?"

"Yes."

"Excellent! I hope this experience hasn't changed the way you feel about Naruko?"

"Of course not!" Hinata exclaimed, shocked. Her head snapped up, looking between the Hokage and Naruko herself, who'd been eyeing her fearfully at the question, but broke into a tremulous smile at her exclamation.

"See? I told you your fiends wouldn't care." Hotaru said softly. "Shikamaru already knows, too. He guessed at your party. I didn't outright confirm it for him, since I suspected that wasn't allowed to tell people, but I told him I couldn't confirm it in such a way that a person as clever as Shika would know not to go spreading his suspicion around. Knowing Shika and his 'trouble' avoidance, I doubt he bothered to take it up with the Hokage like I said he should, but either way he didn't care… and you know Chōji will just follow Shika's lead when he finds out."

"Right." Naruko wiped her face on the sleeve of her training outfit. "Right!"

"While we're on the topic of reactions, I couldn't help notice that yours was rather… delayed, Hinata-chan. Would you mind explaining what happened in the training field from your point of view?"

"Um," Hinata began touching her fingers together and dropped her head down nervously "I was," She glanced sidelong at Hotaru and blushed beet red. "I-I was l-Looking at Hotaru-kun's chakra through the byakugan. It moves in and out of his coils in strange ways, and sometimes it goes stripy, so it's much easier to follow when it leaves. Today it was stripy, so I was trying to see where it was going."

"Huh, and that's why you got distracted and ended up on your back? You could have just asked, you know?" Hotaru chimed in with amusement.

"I know. I w-was enjoying trying to work it out myself. The strain on my eyes was making them stronger too. I can even see t-tenketsu now."

"Oh! That's excellent Hinata-chan! Hiashi-san must be so proud." Said the Hokage.

Naruko tugged Hotaru's shirt and whispered a little too loudly, "What's the big deal? You said the byakugan could see tenketsu?"

"Only the strong ones can see them, although they all have the capability, most Hyūga don't get there until they're grownups, if they develop it at all. Congratulations Hinata! For the record, the stripy chakra thing is a chakra control exercise, and the strangely moving chakra is a clan secret."

Hinata gave a small, subdued smile. "When the red chakra came, I had to turn them off, it was so bright, but when you made it go away, I reactivated them. I wanted to see what was happening. I… I saw that you weren't really losing any chakra, even though you were giving so much to Naruko, so I tried to see where the chakra was coming from, and I felt something happen, and then my vision could look deeper, and I saw-"

"And I'm going to cut you off there! That one is definitely a clan secret. I'll discuss it with you on a later date in private. The "in an opaque room," kind of private."

Everyone eye'd Hotaru curiously, but not even the Hokage asked him to elaborate. Even he would respect a clan secret unless he felt that it compromised the village in some way.

"U-um, s-sorry for intruding!" Hinata stuttered, bowing deeply.

He wrapped one arm around her shoulder and gave her a brief squeeze.

"No harm done. Would you mind activating your byakugan for a moment? I'd like to make sure that you didn't damage anything." Hotaru pulled a black glove from his pocket, pulling it onto one hand.

Hinata did as asked, and Hotaru ran some chakra through the glove, making some kind of diagnostic jutsu appear, which he ran over her eyes.

"They look different!" The Third said, fascinated. "They turned a very pale blue-white, rather than the usual lavender-white of the byakugan, and the circle where the pupil would be is just a tad more defined."

"They're also putting much less strain on the chakra vessels around the eyes, notice how the veining is less prominent? All the chakra flows through the eyes looks about normal for when you use the byakugan, but it's drawing much less than usual. Are there any other changes to your sight? Can you see as far as usual?"

Hotaru deactivated the glove, and put it back in his pocket, where a flash of chakra saw it sucked into one of many seals lining the inside.

"You have so many seals inside your pockets!" Hinata exclaimed without thinking, then paused. "Why do you have a kitchen sink?"

There was a beat of silence, then Hotaru sighed, as if exhausted. "Oh great, the byakugan can see into sealing spaces now. I'm going to have to re-do all my seals again!"

"U-um! I won't look into any of your seals, Hotaru-kun!" Hinata said earnestly.

He shook his head. "I know you won't Hinata. But once your clan finds out about this, they're going to make you tell them how you trained your eyes to unlock this, and then they're probably going to be able to do it too."

"Hinata-chan, can you try to look into one of the opaque rooms in the tower, please? I would like to know if you can see through the barriers now." The Hokage said.

Hinata shook her head. "I still can't see inside them Hokage-sama."

"Small mercies," Hotaru muttered, "I can at least integrate the opaque room's blocking mechanics into a storage seal easily enough."

He cocked his head to one side and paused, clearly thinking, then reached over and tapped the desk, spreading a seal onto the surface, which he activated, causing a cloud of chakra to emerge and pick up a pen, sucking it inside.

"Can you see the pen?"

"Um, no!"

Hinata felt a bit shocked, she'd always heard that making new seals was incredibly time-consuming and difficult. Her feeling was clearly vindicated by the Hokage's reaction, whatever surprise she felt at the feat was nothing to his shock.

"Hell!" The old man sat up straight. "You just redesigned a storage seal to include an opaque room formation in the space of ten seconds! In your head?!"

"Um, I know?" Hotaru sounded confused.

The Hokage sat back and ran a hand through his hair. "I think I really haven't been giving your talents enough credit, Hotaru-kun."

He shrugged. "It really wasn't that hard. I just added existing elements of the opaque room seal to the spatial boundary definition in the storage seal."

The old man shook his head, but let the matter drop. "Leave that seal intact if you would please. I'll need to re-secure a few seals myself after this, so I'll need to reverse engineer it myself."

Hotaru nodded.

"Are there any other changes, Hinata-chan?"

Hinata scanned the village she could see from the tower.

"Um, my range is the same, but everything looks a bit sharper. I can see tenketsu more easily… and everyone's chakra has a weird texture to it now, It's not unique to the person, and I've seen it change in a few people in the time I've been looking, but I'm not sure what it is."

"We can work it out together later, Hinata-chan!" Naruko piped in.

Hinata smiled, nodded, and shut down her byakugan.

"So, I'm guessing that after you looked at me, you turned your new vision on Naruko and saw the Kyūbi, right?"

"Yes. I-it, it saw me! It roared, a-and it felt so much worse than the hate that came out with the red chakra. It was terrifying. That when I, um… " she trailed off, going red again.

"Don't think too badly of the fox." Hotaru said sadly.

Hinata looked up at his face, startled.

"Pardon?!"

"The fox, don't think too badly of it. It's at least as much of a victim as anyone in Konoha who died in the attack."

"Could you please elaborate on that Hotaru-kun?" The Third said. "I would like to hear your reasoning there."

"The Kyūbi never displayed any aggression to anyone unless they were stupid enough to attack it. At least, not in the last few hundred years. Even in the battle with the First, it only aided Madara because he forced it with genjutsu. Try to look at it from the perspective of the fox; from its point of view, it was living peacefully in the mountains and bothering no-one, then it had its agency stolen against its will, and was forced into battle - only to wake up to find that it had been imprisoned out of paranoia.

"Not even paranoia that it might commit some crime, but that someone else might dominate it again and force it to attack us! A crime the First compounded by then going out and basically kidnapping its mostly innocent siblings, and then handing them out to other nations like party-favours rather than sapient creatures.

"By the time of the attack on Konoha, even if the fact that it somehow escaped its previous seal, and then was summoned into the middle of the village wasn't damning evidence that someone had repeated Madara's feat of controlling it, it could hardly be blamed for hating us, given that by that point we had been unjustly imprisoning it in a torturous prison for over, what, seventy or eighty years at that point?

"And the on top of that, we used it like some kind of chakra battery to fight in our wars, knowing from Mito-sama that it could sense the negative emotions those battle would draw out, demanding chakra from it like it owed us or something?"

Hinata's hands had come up to cover her mouth in horror at some point without her noticing. Naruko, she saw, was outright tearing up.

"That's horrible!" Naruko exclaimed. "Isn't there any way we can let it go!?"

The Hokage, who was looking quite aggrieved, never having looked at the fox's situation in that light before, shook his head sadly.

"I'm afraid there's no way to separate you from the fox without killing you; and even if we could, and the fox could be convinced not to take revenge on the village for its imprisonment, there's no way the other villages would leave it alone, nor is there any way they would give up their own jinchūriki. Without the threat of a jinchūriki of our own, there's a good chance someone would decide we were weak enough to destroy and start a war. Thousands would die."

Naruko sniffled, wiping her face again.

"Hotaru-kun, can I stay with you again tonight?" Naruko said, looking at Hotaru with huge, teary eyes.

"Of course you can silly."

Hinata couldn't help but feel a little jealous that Naruko would get to go home to someone who wanted her there, while she would be forced to return to the cold Hyūga compound, where even her beloved little sister barely tolerated her anymore.

Hinata gasped in horror! ' Hanabi! Oh no! If the elders find out that my eyes have advanced further, they'll put the caged bird seal on her!' Hinata began to hyperventilate in panic.

'I can't even hide it, since the appearance has changed enough that they'll see it when I have to train tomorrow morning!'

There was a ringing in her ears. She was vaguely aware of Naruko flitting frantically around her trying to find out what was wrong, then, suddenly, she was plunged once more into that warm, caressing massage and pulled into a hug. The air was sucked slowly out of her lungs, and then just as slowly forced its way back in. Over, and over, until she was no longer panicking and could breathe on her own.

Hinata had long melted into the hug by that point.

"Was that an artificial respiration jutsu?" Hiruzen asked with interest.

"Yup, made it myself. Got one for sucking fluids from the lungs too. I never bothered giving them to the hospital since medics can just directly oxygenate the blood or draw out fluids, they're more for saving drowning people… and for panic attacks I guess."

"Could we teach them to the academy students, do you think?"

"I don't know that most of them have the control necessary. You wouldn't want to force too much air into the lungs, after all, or have them suck blood out through the lungs' membranes. Maybe if you gave them more control exercises and dedicated a decent amount of class time with some small animals to practice on or something, you could teach the students in the final year?" Hotaru mused, scratching his chin.

"Food for thought. Perhaps Tsunade will offer some insight on the matter. How are you doing, Hinata-chan? Do you feel up to telling us what's bothering you?"

Hinata pouted as Hotaru let her go once more. Stutteringly, she explained her fears for her sister to the Hokage, whose frown deepened the longer she talked.

"I can't think of anything I can do about this. The Hyūga made the allowance of the seal conditional to their joining the village, as repugnant as I find it." The Hokage admitted sadly.

Hinata sniffed. She had expected as much.

"I think I could probably do something, if we had a bit more time. I've been working on a dōjutsu protection seal for a while for… reasons. It's much better than the caged bird seal, and I can adapt it easily enough to the byakugan. A seal could probably be worked in a seal to force your eyes back into the regular byakugan too, if I had a day or so to work at it." Hotaru scratched his chin as he stared into nothing, his mind occupied with complex formulae.

"I was already planning to offer the seal to the Hyūga and Uchiha after all - conditional to them throwing out that offence to my art; although I was planning to give it the ability to regenerate any lost eyes too. I haven't worked out how to do that last part with a seal yet though."

The Hokage smiled genially. "Perhaps there is something I can do for you after all, Hinata-chan. How do you feel about spending the night at Hotaru's home, to comfort Naruko after the trauma of learning of the fox inside of her?"

For once, catching on quicker than Hinata, Naruko gave a sly smile and an evil little giggle before clearing her throat and throwing herself dramatically into Hinata's arms, crocodile tears leaking down her face. "Oh! Hinata-chan! I am incona- inconsa- really sad! Won't you come to stay with us and help me feel better?! I'll never recover without your help."

Despite herself, Hinata giggled at her overly dramatic performance. "Of course I'll help you, Naruko-chan. I think the word you were looking for was 'inconsolable' by the way."

"Right, that one." Naruko nodded.

The Hokage laughed. "Well then, why don't the two of you go ahead to Hotaru's house. Raido, please inform Hiashi that Hinata will be spending the night at the Uzumaki household on my orders to comfort her friend. They'll head directly to the academy from there in the morning, and Hinata will return home as usual after classes let out. Hotaru, stay behind, please. I would like to have a word about the training you'll be giving Naruko from now on." That last bit had a touch of an edge to it, but for the life of her, Hinata couldn't say why.

She never got a chance to wonder any further, as Naruko dragged her out the door babbling something about a sleepover, and she realised she was going to be sleeping in her crushes house!

---

Chapter 17

---

Chapter 17

Hiruzen leaned forward in his seat, sighing. In front of him, Hotaru stood easy. If Hiruzen hadn't detected the tiny indications of irritation in their earlier conversation, he would have assumed the boy was completely relaxed and confident.

Indeed, even now he was beginning to doubt himself somewhat. Had he imagined the tiny, fleeting signs of tension earlier, or was Hotaru simply so good of an actor that those insignificant moments were the only glimpses he'd get of the boy's true feelings?

"Hotaru-kun, do you know why I asked you to stay behind?"

The boy tilted his head slightly to the side, regarding him curiously.

"It wasn't to finish my report on what Takehiko saw in Iwa this morning?"

Hiruzen paused, he'd actually forgotten about that.

"No, but we can start with that. What did Takehiko see that you felt worth bringing to me?"

He listened to the second hand retelling with yet another tired sigh. 'Great, another high level missing-nin to worry about. At least it wasn't one of ours for once.' Hiruzen couldn't help but feel a sense of schadenfreude when Hotaru mentioned the level of destruction left in the missing-nin's wake.

'Take that Onoki, you back-stabbing midget!'

The paperwork an incident like that generated would see his fellow Kage chained to his desk for weeks, and Hiruzen couldn't be happier about it. He had a particular dislike for his old rival due to the man's tendency to break any agreements or treaties Iwa entered into the moment it looked advantageous.

He leaned back in his chair. "I see. Thank you for bringing this to me, Hotaru-kun, and please pass on my gratitude to Takehiko." Hiruzen began to drum his fingers on his desk, considering how to proceed. He needed to get his point across without alienating the boy too much.

"Now, I would like you to explain to me why you thought it was acceptable to endanger the village the way you did today. Not to mention the danger you put young Naruko-chan in." There was a hard edge to his tone now, eyes set in a stern glare.

Hotaru seemed largely unfazed, tilting his head once more.

"I didn't put anyone in danger, though?"

"You can't expect me to believe that you, who admitted to me just this afternoon that you were one of the most powerful sensors in the village, were unaware of Naruko's burden? Or that you lacked the fuuinjutsu knowledge to anticipate the dangers of depleting Naruko's chakra reserves to such a degree?"

"Well, no… But I'd never put the village in danger. The only factor I failed to account for was the sheer intensity of the Kyūbi's hatred. I hadn't expected it to feel so… palpable, with such a small amount of its chakra leaking out. If I'd known that, I'd have erected a barrier first to prevent alarming the village. The worst I'd expected was an investigation of a large chakra surge from a couple of ANBU.

"The village and Naruko were never in any danger. I could easily suppress a thousand times the chakra that was released today, and the seal itself has fail-safes built in that can restore it to full function even if it's broken down far enough for an eight tails manifestation."

Hiruzen regarded the boy evenly, going over his claims internally and comparing them to the ease with which he'd dealt with Naruko's quickly aborted rampage. He glanced at the seal on the desk; a brand-new seal, created with just seconds of consideration.

"And why did you decide to engineer the situation in the first place?"

"Because not knowing about the seal was dangerous. Naruko trains a lot on her own after she goes home, once her chakra recovers from our joint training. She does it even on rest days when I tell her not to - probably from boredom.

"These exercises she's started on, they're very chakra intensive. The first stage is training to release a huge burst of chakra all at once, for using intensive jutsu such summoning, after that she'd progress to releasing a strong, constant stream for sustained jutsu.

"If she exhausted herself on her own, while I wasn't there to lock her down, she could have done serious damage to the village. At least this way, she knows where the limit is, and she knows not to push herself too hard - or at least she will once I get home and explain why the seal began to fail."

Hiruzen considered Hotaru's words at length, the silence stretching a little further than was comfortable. It was sound reasoning, and he could fill in the blanks himself: 'If I'd asked you first, you might have said no.' Typical reasoning from a child. As Hotaru began to fidget, Hiruzen spoke up.

"I will be assigning a Jōnin to oversee your training for the duration of these exercises. You should have brought the matter to me before risking the integrity of the seal, something which I'm certain you were aware of. I will keep your punishment for this indiscretion light, since your reasoning was sound, and you did, by all appearances, take sufficient precautions to avoid a larger incident. You will be contributing the cost of a C ranked mission towards your supervising Jōnin's mission pay for however long it takes for Naruko to master the exercises you described.

"I am also ordering you," he stressed the word to make sure Hotaru was clear that this was not optional, "to report all further exercises that have the potential to, in any way, compromise the seal to your assigned supervisor. You will not proceed with them while he is not present. Do I make myself clear?"

"Crystal sir."

"Good. Dismissed."

Hotaru gave a bow and left the office - through the window, much to Hiruzen's amusement. 'Like father, like son.' He chuckled to himself as he loaded his pipe with some fresh herb and lit up again.

Almost as if drawn there, he found his gaze once more resting on the improvised seal Hotaru had left on his desk. 'Could you have managed such a feat, Mito-sama?' He mused to himself, mind drifting back to the horrors found within the walls of a ruined city, when the response force he had spearheaded had arrived too late.

Buildings that belonged to kindly old grannies who'd given him cookies on previous visits with his teacher, that now periodically turned people inside out, only to rip the chakra from their victim to reset the trap. The entire street before the academy, which to this day still unravelled people who entered it like a spool of string. Hotaru hadn't been joking when he scoffed at Raido's lack of imagination - three of the great villages, and a few smaller ones had collaborated to bring Uzu down, and it almost hadn't been enough.

He was brought back to himself when Genma spoke.

"I'm sorry my boy, my mind was elsewhere, what was it you said?"

"I said, was it just me, or did he seem angry when you answered Naruko's question regarding the reason she was selected as a jinchūriki?"

Hiruzen slumped slightly. "No, I suspect you are correct."

"But you didn't order him not to tell her?"

He took a long puff on the pipe. "Never give an order you know won't be obeyed. It undermines your authority and causes resentment from your subordinates. Hotaru is a frighteningly clever boy, I have no doubt he'd find some way to circumvent whatever order I gave in that regard."

"Then… why did you not just tell her yourself? Won't her reaction be much worse because you lied again?" Genma looked puzzled.

"Habit, mostly. By the time I realised it would be a good moment to tell her, I'd already started answering. I'll call her back in sometime soon and let her know. Tell her that I didn't want Hinata and Hotaru hearing."

Genma nodded, that would probably mitigate the worst of it.

The Hokage stood, stretched, and beckoned to his guard. "Come on, we'd best get some rest - I foresee a long day of meetings and paperwork ahead of us tomorrow."

---

Hotaru's kitchen window opened outwards on utterly silent hinges lifted by a single chakra string. Bracing one hand each on the top and bottom frame of the window, he lifted his body, tucked in his legs and swung himself through, launching himself over the bench-top facing the window and landing just as silently on the kitchen floor. Behind him, the window swung shut, never making any noise even as the opening edge of the window hit the frame and the locks, both physical and fūinjutsu based, re-engaged.

Hotaru was quite proud of the technique formula on the hinges there. He remembered working on it with his mother when he was five, it had actually contained an element that had been his very first fully original bit of seal-work.

The seals on the window would seal away the kinetic energy of any vibrations the window experienced, periodically imparting the stored energy onto any dust or grime that coated the window, launching it from the surface and cleaning it. This came with the unexpected benefit of rendering the window soundproof, and when Honoka had finished fussing over him in pride, she'd made a point of placing the seal on every window in the house, as well as on the walls, floor and door of the bedroom she shared with his father for reason's Hotaru preferred no to think about.

Then she'd proceeded to drag him around to brag to any of her peers that would listen about her 'genius' of a son.

A flash of the Kagura Shingan revealed Hinata and Naruko seated next to each other at the table and chatting over cups of tea whilst they waited for him. He could hear Naruko's boisterous voice fairly clearly from here, but couldn't smell any food, meaning they still hadn't eaten - they wouldn't have gotten home before him if they stopped for food, especially since Naruko would have insisted on Ichiraku's, which would have involved seconds.

Hotaru set about making a quick cup for himself, a process greatly expedited by the ability to pull water already at eighty degrees straight from the air into the cup. Even a gentle stirring was more efficiently accomplished with suiton manipulation than the traditional implements, as much as the idea would probably give tea ceremony lovers fits.

Hotaru approached the table and elected to seat himself opposite the two girls. Two Naruko sized bowls of ramen, unsealed before he left the kitchen, floated from behind him on chakra strings and set themselves in front of the girls, his hands having been occupied with his own bowl and the cup of tea.

"None of us have eaten anything since lunchtime, so even if it will sit heavy while we sleep, I thought it best to get something to eat - you did have a hard couple of hours of training on top of the academy after all."

"Oh yeah! Ramen!" Naruko crowed, "Come to mama."

"Um…" Hinata looked wide-eyed at the size of the bowl.

Correctly interpreting the cause of her hesitation, Hotaru moved to comfort her.

"Don't worry if you can't finish it, just eat however much you want and throw the rest in the Ramen disposal unit." He nodded his head in Naruko's direction.

"Hey!" Naruko pouted at him, but he just raised a brow.

"Are you saying you don't want it?"

"Whoa! Let's not be too hasty now!" Hinata giggled at her friend and tucked into her food.

The three of them ate in a comfortable silence. To Hotaru, Hinata felt a lot more relaxed than he'd ever seen her before. There was usually an undercurrent of anxiety to her, as if she was constantly being watched and judged, it was so normal to him that it was only notable in its absence. Dejectedly, Hotaru realised that this was the first time he'd ever seen her where she felt like her family wasn't watching her - his opaque room was directly between the dining room and the Hyūga compound, and the byakugan still needed line of sight to see; an issue that his own dōjutsu had overcome when it integrated his kagura shingan.

This was, incidentally, the main reason the village was so frugal with the allowance of opaque rooms - a single room would not only completely conceal its contents, but obscure anything behind it.

Naturally, that wouldn't protect them from the view of any Hyūga outside the compound, but it was rather unlikely any of them would be paying his house any attention, since most of the Hyūga tended to keep to their mansion unless they had some other task to occupy their attention.

Looking at her now, happily slurping down her food without the weight of her families expectations beating down on her, Hotaru resolved to find ways to let her relax like this more often.

Of course, silence never lasted all that long around Naruko, and the moment she'd eaten enough of her massive bowl of ramen to take the edge off of her hunger, she began chatting once again. For once, Hotaru wasn't paying her much attention, content to let her engage Hinata in conversation while he stewed in his own thoughts.

The Third had dodged the issue of Naruko's parentage again. Hotaru's hand clenched around his cup of tea, avoiding crushing it into powder only by grace of the fact that he'd created the cup when making his tea to avoid dishes, and it was still infused with chakra. Clearly, the old man wasn't planning on fessing up any time soon. That was okay; he'd accounted for this possibility - expected it, even - but he was done playing nice. It was time for drastic measures, Hotaru supposed it wasn't really his problem if the Third would survive or not when she got her hands on him.

He glanced at the shrine against the wall. 'Just a bit longer, mum, I'll get her back.' He promised silently. Naruko was part of his clan, family, no matter how distant; she shouldn't have to live alone.

After dinner, he gathered the both of them in the opaque room, and made a clone which took Naruko off to one side to explain why her seal had begun to fail earlier in the day. During the incident, he'd had the forethought to place a marker next to the seal which recorded her exact chakra level, after their talk the clone would expand that marker into a technique formula which would send very distinct warning signals to Naruko as she approached the danger zone (and one to him as well when she hit the last warning, to ensure he could be nearby in the event of another incident.)

While the pair were occupied with that, the real Hotaru took Hinata aside and once more scanned her byakugan, having her activate and deactivate the mid-scan. Trying to understand what had changed. He'd examined the byakugan extensively in the lead up to the bloodline installation - more than that, the byakugan sample came from Hinata herself. There should be nothing within her specific bloodline that he didn't understand, heck he'd even reverse engineered it as a ninjutsu (which worked perfectly, if used by someone with the necessary secondary physical adaptations), yet there had been no indication of this upgrade within the template.

Wanting to get to the bottom of the issue, he took a second blood and chakra sample and sealed them away, telling her that he'd need them to fine tune the seal for her eyes. He was about to ask her to try a few more tests, notably increasing the flow of chakra to her eyes to the levels of the regular byakugan, when Hinata yawned, then flushed in embarrassment. Hotaru looked over the girl once more, and noted how tired she looked, despite having a pretty long nap in the Hokage's office. He also noted that she'd ended up finishing the ramen quite handily, which was quite a bit more than she usually ate, at least going by her lunches.

Concerned, he ran the diagnosis glove over her one more time, this time focusing on her body rather than just her eyes, he noted her chakra was roiling in her body, and a wave of small changes were happening on a cellular level.

Since nothing harmful seemed to be happening, he decided to take a wait and see approach rather than bother her with more tests, placing a quick seal that would sound an alarm if her vitals crashed, though that was unlikely, since she was one of the beneficiaries of the Gelel seal that he had mentioned to the Third.

There would be more time to check her over in the morning, hopefully after whatever her body was doing had stabilised - in the worst case scenario he could always utilise the recorded map of her DNA that had been produced as a step in the process of creating the template for the byakugan, before he'd come up with the seal that could specifically isolate bloodline factors.

"Hinata-chan , Naruko looks like she's about done over there, why don't the two of you get cleaned up and head to bed? I have a few things to do here, so I'm going to stay up a little longer."

"Yeah, come on, Hinata-chan!" Naruko spoke up, bouncing over, "Wait till you see the awesome way Hotaru's bathroom works!"

Grabbing the shy girl's hand, she dragged her out of the room, expounding on the wonders of the new mouth cleaning stick and his "awesome shower" and its "magic rain cloud".

Laughing, Hotaru pinged the clone that had been attending Naruko with the densō jutsu, instructing it to head into each of the rooms and add a light switch to the doorway for Naruko and Hinata's use, then hang around in the opaque room in case the girls needed something. Hotaru himself moved into the Library to hopefully find some answers in Hinata's bloodline.

Creating a pair of clones, which, having been created knowing their purpose, immediately moved off to complete their tasks - one to decode the fresh sample of Hinata's bloodline, the other to re-examine the existing maps of the byakugan.

Hotaru himself decided to see if he could not reproduce the same transformation in his own eyes. Seating himself cross-legged on the floor, he activated his dōjutsu, and began the chakra exercise he had been practising when Naruko had her little outburst, attempting to follow the contrasting points of chakra as they moved in and out of his secondary chakra system.

It took perhaps a half hour before he made any progress on perceiving the not-direction Hinata had described, and another half trying to push his vision along it before his eyes began to strain. Remembering what Hinata had said, and confident in his regeneration if something went wrong, Hotaru pushed harder at that point instead of pulling back until, suddenly, he felt what Hinata had correctly described as a "twang" and a release of tension, and he could see the extra chakra network as clearly as he'd been able to see the primary network a few moments ago.

That had been… easy. Too easy. It didn't make sense. Sure, he'd known exactly how to do it thanks to Hinata, but the Hyūga clan went back over a thousand years; if the feat was so easily replicable, there's no way someone wouldn't have discovered it by now, surely. Even if kept secret from outsiders, there was almost no chance that Hinata, the clan heir, wouldn't have at least known it existed.

He looked around the room, seeing how easily he could peer inside the myriad of sealing spaces that existed all over the place inside the library. Notably, the room itself remained impenetrable. He assumed, due to the intervention of the CYOA, or more specifically, the second essence that was altering his world on an ongoing basis in accordance with that CYOA.

"Oh, hey, we got it working!" He was broken from his examination of the world he'd been previously unable to see by the exclamation of the clone responsible for decoding the new samples. 'I didn't even notice him approaching! Shit, got to work on a way to keep at least one eye on the physical world while I'm doing that.'

It seemed the integration of the Kagura Shingan with his eyes dragged his mind's eye into that not-direction as well. That was an unanticipated drawback, but not one he couldn't overcome; he could always use sage transformation to grow a temporary extra eyeball for looking inside seals.

"Not much of an outward change, the blue is a little more saturated like this, but that's about it." The clone continued, oblivious to the shock he'd given himself.

"It uses a little less chakra than before, too, though not enough to be consistent with the reduction in Hinata's eyes. Presumably that's due to the integration of the sharingan."

"Makes sense." The clone shrugged. "Hey, anyway, come look at this! We found something weird."

Hotaru crossed over to the new table the clones had created in a cleared area of the floor with mokuton. On it, he found not two scrolls, but three spread across the table.

"It's pretty obvious when you look at them through the kaishingan." The clone prompted.

"The what!?" Hotaru was jarred out of his examination but the unexpected comment. "Oh, right, you don't know yet. The two of us got a little bored after we finished our tasks and found the thing, so we decided to name the dōjutsu. We settled on kaishingan, kanji for solution, heart and eye. If you read the syllables phonetically, you get 'release minds eye', but together they make up something like 'solution eye, reconciliation eye' which works great since that one mangekyo jutsu made them great at finding solutions to encrypted things, and the eye itself was a result of our attempt to reconcile the redundant output with the kagura shingan."

It was a decent name, as good as any Hotaru could think of - unsurprising since it was two of him that thought it up in the first place - but there was a tiny, irrational part of him that resented being left out of naming his own bloodline. Fortunately, stupid thoughts like that never lasted longer than it took him to dismiss the clones; they were him after all, made of his thoughts and his chakra, and destined to become a part of the whole again in a short while. He was just… splitting his attention.

Deciding to accept the name he himself had come up with, he activated his newly dubbed kaishingan and peered at the open scrolls, comparing them to find any differences.

"There!" The decryption jutsu inherent to this mode of vision had no trouble spotting a small section missing in the bloodline depicted on one of the three scrolls. "There's a part missing on this one?" He scanned the rest of the scroll on the left. "No, wait, this is exactly how I remember it. This is the scan of Hinata's bloodline? What are the other two?"

Rather than wait for an answer, he dismissed the other two clones and went through their memories, glad that his essence had long since made the reintegration process quick, easy and safe.

'What the hell? The left-most scroll is Hinata's original bloodline scan, that makes sense, but the right-most is mine from right after I installed the byakugan into myself, and it has the same extra section as Hinata's new scan? There are other differences in mine though… no, that makes sense, those must be the cosmetic changes I was allowed to make by the… the CYOA!

'At the time, I was in no hurry, and had no reason to go over them excessively the way I did with the sage transformation bloodline, I just made the assumption that any changes were the cosmetic ones, but if something else was different… but why?'

Hotaru scraped up as much of the wording of the CYOA document as he could remember.

"The Kekkei Genkai of both the Ōtsutsuki and Hyūga Clans." He said aloud to himself, face lighting up in realisation. 'It was in the very first line of the section on the byakugan, and I just overlooked it because I assumed they were the same, that it was just talking about the horned Ōtsutsuki clan that Kaguya came from… but there was another Ōtsutsuki clan, wasn't there? The Byakugan users on the moon still called themselves by that name! And there had to be some kind of difference between the two, or that one crazy moon kid wouldn't have needed to steal Hanabi's eyes.'

'All this time, I thought I had a copy of Hinata's byakugan, but I didn't! The moment I satisfied the conditions for the CYOA the second essence replaced it with the one from the document, not whatever half-and-half job the Hyūga and moon crazies had, but the full-blooded byakugan!'

Hotaru grinned, he let the satisfaction of a mystery solved fill him for a few moments before he refocused on the other mystery. That answered the question of why his eyes could make the change, but how did they jump to Hinata?

Hotaru paced the library, going over the events that triggered the change in Hinata's eyes. Naruko exploded, she turned the byakugan off, then almost immediately turned the back on once the glare from the Kyūbi's chakra… receded… The CHAKRA! Naruko's seal had gone off right after Hotaru had used his chakra to massage inside Hinata's body. When she had been pushing her eyes to see into the seals, she had been doing it with his chakra contaminating hers!

Hotaru had no idea how her body had continued to produce the modified chakra, but it was clearly possible, the result of some chakra mechanic he was still ignorant of - Madara had done the same thing after all, integrating the chakra of Hashirama to awaken the Rinnegan. Hotaru's hunch was that the reason Hinata's body was changing on the microscale was in order to continue producing the new chakra for the bloodline.

Presumably there must be some other hidden condition that needed to be met to upgrade the Byakugan and Sharingan to the Rinnegan and Tenseigan, given that Hotaru now had both the Uzumaki (who, like the Senju, were descendants of Asura) and Uchiha bloodlines, as well as both the Byakugan lines. Neither he nor Hinata had manifested either dōjutsu after all.

Hagoromo was able to do so immediately after awakening the Mangekyo, which gave Hotaru a pretty good idea what that condition might be, too, which was the tertiary motive for causing Naruko to go out of control today. He'd sealed away a tiny fragment of Kurama's chakra in his hand for study.

That could wait, though; It was bedtime, and there would be plenty of time to investigate those issues later. Realistically, he was probably already strong enough to deal with anything he was likely to encounter in the next decade or so, barring Kaguya herself. He could afford to take his time a little. For now, he had a bed that, knowing Naruko like he did, probably had two girls waiting for him in it.

Hotaru made one last clone, just to make alterations to the protective seal he'd be giving Hinata in the morning, having long since had a working prototype that was just waiting around for him to figure out seal based regeneration.

Hotaru had figured out how to switch back to the regular byakugan almost immediately - as he'd suspected, he merely needed to increase the flow of chakra to his eyes back to what it had been before the change - rather the opposite of the mangekyo sharingan. He'd have to work on that if he wanted to use both simultaneously, but just that knowledge would be sufficient for Hinata to hide her change in order to protect little Hanabi.

Still, he'd feel more comfortable if she had a way of explaining the new eyes if it did come up, so the clone would be integrating the missing parts of the byakugan into the seal. That way, any of her clansmen that had the seal applied, would be able to train their way into the advanced form of the eyes. If she was found out, she could lay the blame on him for gifting her with the new seal.

He made his way out of the library, dismissing the clone he'd left in there, took a quick shower and cleaned his mouth, then made his way into his room, finding it pitch dark, with the two girls curled up in his bed. As he'd anticipated even before popping his clone had let him know what was going on, Naruko had dragged Hinata into sleeping in his bed, steamrolling any timid objections through sheer force of personality.

Fortunately, his essence had long ago elevated his night vision to the point that he could easily see, even in the deep darkness that currently blanketed his bedroom, so he had no problem preparing for bed and slipping under the covers. Of course, no matter how good he was at moving silently, adding his weight to a mattress without disturbing people sleeping on it is a different story altogether.

As he settled in, Naruko shifted from her place wrapped around Hinata, and looked blearily over her shoulder at him, despite being unable to see.

"'Nally, 'ug" She mumbled drowsily, reaching back and groping across his chest for his far hand, pulling his arm over her body with a casual strength that would shock a civilian and forcing him into taking the big spoon position - not that he actually resisted her; he enjoyed a hug as much as she did.

The issue came when she snuggled back into him, pulling his arm into an embrace, then reaching out and pulling Hinata in for a tighter hug as well. Hinata stirred too, then quickly fell back into sleep along with Naruko, who was out like a light the moment she found her position comfortable.

Hotaru had more trouble putting down. As he had noted on the previous occasion, there was something fundamentally different about hugging another person than cuddling with a transformed clone, and this time he was the big spoon, pressed into Naruko's smooth, warm back. When she'd shuffled back, he'd somehow become nestled somewhere very soft, and he could feel himself reacting.

Compounding the matter, he could feel Hinata's flesh pressed against his arm, which meant that Naruko had, at the very least, somehow managed to convince shy, timid Hinata of all people to climb into his bed topless.

'Ok, you got this, think of them as clones, they're just clones. Breathe deep, relax and go to sleep, if you deactivate the alarm jutsu they'll probably wake up first anyway, they're both in the habit of rising early, and they went to bed before you did.' Hotaru started to take deep, slow breaths, trying to shut out the pleasant, clean smell of the two girls, and counted slowly back from ten in his head. He was asleep before he reached three.

---

Hot, it was too hot. She was trapped, warm bodies on both sides. It was too hot, and she desperately needed to pee.

Half asleep, Naruko wrenched herself out from between her two bedmates and trudged, obliviously, buck naked into the bathroom. Quickly doing her business, she blearily trudged back to the bed, finding that Hinata, seeking warmth, had rolled into her spot while she was gone.

That was fine, she'd been too hot anyway. She trekked around the bed, and climbed in the other side, squirming into the little spoon position with Hinata at her back this time. She'd woken up quite a bit during her journey to the toilet, but the warmth, and the feel of Hinata's steady heartbeat against her back quickly pulled her back into oblivion; she wouldn't even remember getting up the next time she woke.

---

Hinata was having a dream, it was a very good dream, the kind she'd never have the courage to tell anyone about. She knew it was a dream, because she would never be able to act in such a shameless manner in real life.

In her dream, she was bent over a reclining Naruko, the two of them sharing a heated kiss, and Hotaru was… doing things to her, from behind, really nice things. She didn't want him to stop, something was building, and then… then, she was suddenly lying on her side, and Naruko was lying in front of her, wide-eyed, her mouth open and breathing heavy.

She realised with a start that she had woken up when Naruko had pulled away and rolled over to look at her, but had little time to dwell on it, because the pleasure hadn't stopped. If anything, it had intensified. Her breasts were still being kneaded skilfully from behind, and she had something hot and hard clamped between her thighs. She had been, and still was, unconsciously shifting her hips to grind her slick sex against it.

She wasn't able to bring herself to stop, she was so close. Her own eyes widened, her newly evolved dōjutsu activating on instinct as she stared like a cornered rabbit at Naruko, who had just begun to grope herself, never taking her eyes off of Hinata.

Whatever had changed in her eyes had not removed the blind-spot, but as close to Hotaru as she was, she was only missing a little cone of his neck, and she was relieved to see from his chakra flow that he was still asleep, his eyelids flickering like they did when someone was having a dream. She wondered if it was her he was dreaming about? If what he was feeling from her body was translating into the dream the way it had with her.

Pleasure spiking at the thought, she clenched her thighs even harder and shifted a little faster, she could feel him twitching below, but it was too late. She could feel her climax hit her like a truck, her body spasming violently. Her uncontrolled movements nearly caused him to enter her in truth, thankfully however the angle was wrong, and he skipped off without penetrating.

The spasm's had two other effects, however, which occurred more or less simultaneously: first, they tipped Hotaru over the edge of the same cliff Hinata had just fallen from, and at the same time her more violent movements had woken him up.

Hinata heard only a soft cry of pleasure before the blankets covering them were torn back rapidly, and a hand, belonging to a fully clothed clone of Hotaru pried the original's hand from her breast and yanked the still climaxing boy from the bed as if he weighed as much as a feather.

Hinata realised she'd been so preoccupied with the pair in bed with her, that she'd failed to pay any attention to the Hotaru approaching the door from another room. Naruko's eyes widened even further, bouncing between Hinata, the clone and then settled on the thick white liquid coating her hand and belly.

Hinata could also feel a little of it between her legs, a hot bead running down the back of her thigh and falling off to hit the sheets, most of her attention however was on the true Hotaru was splayed, naked and disoriented on the floor, fully in the open for her viewing pleasure, and on the way the clone was unable to resist drinking in the sight pulling back the sheets had afforded him for a few seconds, before catching himself and turning away, a radioactive blush on his face.

Which was about when everything that had just happened registered, and she realised what she'd just done, been seen doing, and passed out from total mortification.

---

Hotaru was, understandably, a little off-balance when he woke, ripped from an extremely pleasant dream at the climactic moment, only to find the climax to be more than a dream. Thankfully, the reality had been a lot tamer than the dream, but waking mid-orgasm to find yourself flying - not gently - through the air and hitting the ground would throw just about anybody.

On reflex, he activated the kagura shingan. This did nothing to help get his bearings quicker, as he now had an immense amount of additional stimulus to process. Thankfully, Hotaru was a fast thinker, and, seeing Hinata slump, her eyes deactivating and chakra smoothing out, clearly unconscious, he was able to put aside his confusion to focus.

He sat up and went to check on Hinata only to find Naruko dragging her fingers through the mess he'd left on her stomach with a soft "Woah!", blissfully unaware of Hinata's condition. Fortunately, she was already beginning to wake back up, so Hotaru decided that discretion was the better part of valour and acted quickly to expedite his retreat.

A pair of chakra strings applied a pair of contraceptive seals to the two girls, just in case - he was aware that penetration wasn't actually required to get a girl pregnant. At the same time, a quick suiton jutsu cleaned any mess he'd left with a stream of warm water, startling a squawk out of Naruko, and Hotaru, cheeks burning, dragged the blanket back over the two of them manually, only just managing to warp the little orb of water out onto the back lawn with kamui before blanket collide with it.

By the time, an indignant Naruko managed to pull her head free of the blanket that was now covering her head, Hotaru had unsealed his exercise clothes, popped the clone, and was halfway out the door.

"We're not skipping again today, get up and get dressed for our run!" He called back over his shoulder as he went into the hall to get dressed.

Naruko spent enough time over at his house, both before and after training, that they'd long ago started keeping a few of her outfits in his wardrobe scroll, even if her sleeping over was a recent development. The girls would have something to wear for the run, given how stretchy the taijutsu master outfits were, but Hinata would probably appreciate some fresh clothes, so Hotaru created a clone to head over to the Hyūga clan and pick up some fresh clothes while the original headed into the kitchen to retrieve a few energy shakes.

It was a little over five minutes before the girls emerged, red-faced, from his room. Hinata in particular was nearly glowing. Both girls were wearing one of Naruko's taijutsu master outfits and the accompanying tunic, and with the image of her nude body freshly burned into his memory, Hotaru couldn't help but notice how well Hinata filled it out already, though she was nowhere near possessing the curves he knew she one day grow into.

Neither girl could meet his eyes, although he himself would admit to not making much of an effort in that regard either. It was astonishing to him how much context really did matter in interpersonal interactions; it wasn't like he hadn't seen both girls stark naked before - he'd even needed to run his hands all over them to place their resistance seals, but he'd never felt a tenth as embarrassed and awkward as he did after the sexually charged awakening this morning.

He cleared his throat. "So, that happened." He paused awkwardly, then bowed, "I'm sorry, Hinata, I'm not sure how that even happened, when I got into bed I was lying next to Naruko…" He trailed off.

Hinata attempted to speak, but all that cam out was a squeak.

Hotaru decided he'd take it, rallied and pushed on. "Anyway, my clone finished adjusting the seal for your eyes, so I figured we'd get in our morning exercise and I could apply the new seal when we get back. I already sent out a clone to pick you up a change of clothes from home, and I've got a couple of shakes here to keep our energy up till breakfast."

He held out the two cups, "I already finished mine while you were getting dressed."

"Ooh! I love these!" Naruko perked up, mind taken from the embarrassment she'd suffered just a short while ago. She leapt forward and snatched the drink, taking a long gulp and coming away with a pink moustache. "Berries!" She exclaimed, eyes sparkling, and went back for a second gulp.

Despite herself, Hinata found herself intrigued by Naruko's enthusiasm for the drink, and pushed past her embarrassment to take the drink, giving a soft hum of appreciation as she took a sip and the taste of berries exploded across her palate; most prominently strawberry.

---

Hotaru's clone took its sweet time approaching the Hyūga estate, not out of any trepidation about interacting with the clan, but so that it could scope out the clan with the kagura shingan and try to determine roughly what he was in for.

He was immediately relieved to find that Hiashi Hyūga was still asleep, though he looked to be stirring, and that might not be the case if he kept dawdling. To the good fortune of both Hotaru and Hinata, he didn't see anyone with a sustained active byakugan either.

There were the occasional five or so second bursts from the guard rotation, and slightly longer ones right as the Hyūga that Hotaru knew were active or former shinobi (very nearly all of them past academy graduation age) awoke, the compound slowly coming alive as dawn drew steadily ever nearer. Hotaru assumed those activated the byakugan to get their bearings - and check for threats - instinctively, in much the same way he used his own mind's eye.

Giving it a few moments of thought, the clone decided to maintain its slow pace. If Hiashi decided to interact with him, then he could perhaps head off some of the flack that Hinata was sure to catch when she got home for, among other things, going on a run with Hotaru and Naruko.

Hotaru knew, having observed the emotions of Hiashi and, to a lesser extent, those members of the branch family with whom she trained during their interactions with Hinata, that Hiashi truly did love his daughters, both of them. He was, however, dog-shit-awful at conveying that care to the girls.

The whole clan had a similar issue, really; Hinata seemed to be the only member without a stick surgically inserted up her ass at birth. For the most part - barring a couple of stand-out exceptions, such as her cousin Neji - the increasingly escalating brutality of Hinata's training appeared to be motivated, paradoxically, out of care and concern for the girl.

She wasn't weak, by any measure. If she could be motivated to fight at her full capacity, she was nearly as impressive as Neji. In fact, with the extra training techniques she'd been adopting from training with him and Naruko, particularly concentration breathing, she was rapidly approaching a point where he would feel confident in asserting that she was better than Neji had been a year ago, when he was her age. Even if she didn't quite measure up to his raw talent.

The issue Hinata had wasn't really her strength or skill. It was her very nature. Hinata was exceptionally well-trained. Amongst her age group, even now, he'd confidently give her the edge in a fight against Naruko, or even Sasuke. If, that is, it weren't for the fact that she seemed only able to bring that strength and skill to bear when her opponent was a clone. Hinata was inherently just too kind. She fundamentally didn't want to hurt anyone.

He thought that was probably the reason for her clan's rough treatment. They were trying to make her angry. Angry enough to fight back at the people tormenting her, because being nice and holding back in a fight due to a reluctance to hurt her opponent would ultimately get her, and any team she was on, killed. Or worse.

The problem, of course, was that Hinata wasn't getting angry at them at all, she was just blaming herself for being weak. He wouldn't be surprised if she thought they all hated her.

Well, Neji did hate her, but that one wasn't really her fault.

Honestly, if another group had tried the same thing, one she didn't love as family, it was possible that it may have worked, but coming from them? No, that was a dead end.

Compounding the matter, Hinata was afraid of winning for another reason: If she was accepted as strong enough to be the clan heir, Hanabi would probably be branded as part of the branch family within the week. Hiashi had been delaying the matter of branding one of his daughters by playing on the possible need to replace Hinata as heir. If Hinata started winning? Pressure from the clan's elders would become a problem for the clan head pretty fast.

Hotaru had some ideas on a more effective method of motivating Hinata to fight properly. He knew, though, that he wouldn't be doing any favours to his friend if he made the suggestion without solving the issue of the caged bird seal first. Which kind of meant that solving the caged bird issue before graduation became a priority.

Ah, there was the entrance to the Hyūga compound. Having maybe two thirds of the numbers that the Uchiha had once boasted, the Hyūga also had their own separately walled area of the village. The Hyūga, in contrast to the Uchiha, had chosen to structure their buildings as a single, sprawling mansion complex with numerous outbuildings, rather than a separate district. It was telling of their view of the clan as a whole: a single giant family, with the branch lines serving the main line; whereas the more common view adopted by the Uchiha (and most other clans), was one of several closely interconnected but separate families.

"Good morning Hyūga-san." The clone waved brightly to the guards manning the entrance. Hyūga guards were potent enough, and perceptive enough, that a single guard was more than sufficient. A single anomalously loud noise would have every eye in the compound checking on the disturbance, after all: ninja were paranoid like that.

The only time there were two guards at the same time, as there were now, was during a shift change, where the retiring shift overlapped the beginning shift for about thirty minutes. This doubling of the guard during a guard rotation was standard Konoha doctrine, intended to overcome the inherent vulnerability of the changing of the guard.

The idea being that the already awake guard, even if tired, would adequately compensate for the bleariness of the guard that had just woken up until they could get their head in the game. The fresh guard on the other hand, even operating at reduced capacity due to just having woken up, would more than compensate for any inattention born of tiredness on the part of the ending shift.

The academy lecture on the matter had indicated that Kumo had also adopted the practice towards the end of the last war.

It would have been pretty easy to tell which guard was which, even if he hadn't watched the new guard take up duty position on his way over. One of the guards looked a bit tired, but was generally pretty friendly, or at least what passed for friendly among the Hyūga; the other guard shot him a sour look, which very clearly said something along the lines of 'Why are you so damn cheerful at this forsaken hour?'

Hotaru knew that his past life had considered waking up to be one of the greatest tribulations of life. He couldn't help but be grateful to whatever factor, or combination of factors, had caused him to have such an easy time of waking up in this incarnation.

"Good morning, Uzumaki-san." The guard nodded, his placid expression shifting what could be, if you squinted really hard, intended to convey a friendly smile.

'Oh good, one of the nicer ones. Glad I didn't put this off any longer.'

"Good morning." The other guard spoke up begrudgingly, unwilling to come off as impolite and cast the clan in a poor light. No matter how much he clearly wanted to punt Hotaru across the street for daring to look so happy while he was so miserable.

"I was wondering if I could talk to someone about getting a change of clothes for Hinata-chan? She spent the night at my place last night to comfort Naruko after her first attempt to tap the Kyūbi's chakra went poorly." Hotaru said, sticking to the narrative the Hokage had come up with.

The guard activated his byakugan for a moment, then nodded and gave a pull to a cord just behind the supporting pillar of the gate's roof. Hotaru knew that it rang a little bell in the main house, alerting a branch family member to the presence of a guest; although he was only aware of this because his hearing had recently become acute enough to detect the jingle of the bell.

"Hiashi-sama has recently awoken, Uzumaki-san. Natsu-san will meet you in the entry and take you to a sitting room."

"Thank you, Hyūga-san." Hotaru gave a little nod to each guard, and made his way inside. On his way past… Hoheto, if he recalled correctly, the younger of the two guards, he caught a faint scent of alcohol.

'Ah, slightly hung over, then. No wonder he's so grouchy.'

Hyūga Natsu was always brusque with him, at least as brusque as she could get away with without leaving the impression of impoliteness, he didn't think she approved of him at all. As far as he could determine, it was mostly due to the way he stuck up for Naruko, but she also didn't seem to approve of Hinata's crush on him.

She pretty much greeted him, stuck him in a sitting room, and bustled off to tell Hiashi he was there - and, hopefully, to get Hinata's things together.

Surprisingly, a slightly dishevelled Hiashi arrived with a bare minimum of delay, taking a seat across from Hotaru with nothing more than an uncharacteristically casual greeting. He waited quietly for Natsu to serve him a cup of tea, and for Hotaru to demur her offer to pour a cup for him on the basis that he was just a shadow clone, then spoke as she left the room.

"Uzumaki-kun," he said, undoubtedly, the diminutive address was just one more of his typical 'subtle' power plays, "I would like you to inform me, in your own words, of the circumstances that led to my daughter spending the night in your home."

Hotaru tilted his head slightly. "Yesterday afternoon, Naruko was attempting to draw upon the chakra of the Kyūbi for the first time under the supervision of elite jōnin Might Ga-"

"The truth, if you please, Uzumaki-kun." Hiashi cut him off sternly, "Having activated my byakugan the moment I felt the fox's chakra, I was well in time to witness Gai arrive after the incident."

Hotaru narrowed his eyes slightly as he regarded the clan head. There was a moment of unspoken communication between the two, one questioning if the other really wished to push despite the official line from the Hokage himself, the other asserting that he very much did.

"Very well. During training yesterday afternoon, Naruko's chakra was depleted enough to allow a small amount of the fox's chakra to leak through the weakened seal. The situation was deliberately engineered by myself in order to make Naruko aware of the possibility, in a controlled environment. It was my intention to avoid the same situation occurring unexpectedly, such as when she was alone in her apartment. I doubt I have to tell you how badly such a situation could turn out."

Hiashi took a moment to digest that.

"And you felt it appropriate to do such a thing whilst my daughter was present?" He finally said tightly.

"You watched the entire sequence of events, I presume?" Hotaru asked, getting a terse nod in return. "Then you also saw that I had the entire situation under tight control. Hinata-chan was never in any danger at all. It was merely unfortunate that I was unaware of how obvious the Kyūbi's chakra would feel, even at such miniscule quantities."

They once more sat in silence as Hiashi sipped his tea, considering his words.

"If it makes you feel any better about future training sessions, the Hokage is assigning a jōnin to oversee any further chakra intensive exercises." Hotaru decided to volunteer as he saw the tenseness in Hiashi's otherwise blank expression begin to ease.

"It certainly doesn't hurt the chances of future training sessions occurring." Hiashi conceded.

He drummed his fingers softly on the table. "Hinata has seen an inordinately large improvement in the few short weeks that she has been joining your training, in light of this, I will allow her to continue joining you after the academy. This will not be the case should a second such incident occur."

"Understood sir."

Hiashi nodded, pleased. "Good." He took another sip. "Now, if you would, please tell me what you know of the rather interesting change I witnessed my daughter's byakugan undergo during the incident. I have no doubt Hokage-sama noticed the change and investigated for himself."

'Shit.' The clone thought desperately, 'Of course he already saw them, we should have expected that! What do I do?'

Hiashi was drumming his fingers on the table again, he could prevaricate, but Hiashi didn't look like he would be willing to let the matter go, and Hinata would almost definitely fold like a house of cards if he turned a stern expression on her.

'I need to come clean,' he decided, 'He doesn't want Hanabi sealed any more than Hinata does, I'm sure of that much… I just need to try and minimise the damage'

"Would you allow me to ensure our privacy for this conversation?" He asked tentatively.

Hiashi nodded curtly, intrigued. "Please."

Hotaru's clone made a few signs for show, then placed a seal on the table, causing a bubble of distortion to ripple outwards, stopping at about six metres across. Hiashi raised a brow and activated his byakugan.

"I recognise this." He said, surprise actually entering his voice for once. "The Hokage asked me to describe its effect on the byakugan some time ago. I had assumed it was his own creation, it was one of yours then?"

The seal in question functioned like a frosted glass window to the byakugan, and other chakra sensory jutsu, preventing them from seeing any real detail. It also blocked the transmission of sound bast the barrier.

The clone nodded. "I had intended it to be a means to give general households a measure of privacy without completely obscuring the byakugan's ability to tell who was in residence and the general gist of what was happening inside.

"I submitted it for testing, but the Hokage said that while it worked precisely as intended on the house itself, it still obscured everything behind the shielded area, so he rejected it. Unfortunately, I still haven't been able to make any progress on that front.

"Everything I've been able to come up with that would enable a byakugan to see past an obscured room would also make the room itself impenetrable."

"Which implies that you can, at the very least, prevent the existing opaque rooms from obscuring our sight." Hiashi noted, trying not to sound too eager. "We will be taking up this matter again at a later date with the Hokage in attendance. For now, you were about to tell me what you know of my daughter's eyes, I believe."

Hotaru let out a sigh. "Alright then. I hope that what is said here can remain between us? Hinata-chan was quite distraught last night, at the thought that Hanabi-chan would likely be branded with the caged bird seal if the change in her eyes was made known to you."

Hiashi was unable to prevent his eyes widening slightly, and the clone could see his worry clearly in his chakra.

"Hinata's eyes underwent a shift which allowed her to peer into the spaces created by seals. Additionally, while in the advanced state, her eyes use noticeably less chakra than the normal byakugan. She described her vision as a little bit sharper than before, and said that she could see tenketsu more easily.

"She also reported the ability to see a new texture to people's chakra that sometimes changes, and is not unique to each person. Having had some time to think about it, I believe, but have not confirmed, that she may be seeing people's emotions in a similar manner to the way I am able to using my clan's own sensory jutsu." After a moment of thought, he added, "She reported there to be no change in her range."

Hiashi leaned back, stunned, mind racing. "I see. That is… significant."

The clone decided to strike while the iron was hot. "I invited Hinata-chan to stay at my place for the night because, in addition to the reasons you were informed about, I have been working on a seal for the purpose of protecting dōjutsu far more comprehensively than the meagre protection offered by the caged bird seal.

"I had intended to build in a method to toggle between the new advanced byakugan and the standard version. It ended up being unnecessary, as, during testing for the seal, we found out that she could still use the normal version by simply increasing the flow of chakra back to the normal levels. However, I also noticed something else, which combined with Hinata-chan's description of the event, gave me a clue as to how the awakening occurred in the first place."

Hiashi's attention was laser focussed on him now, at the mention of a possible method to further awaken the byakugan in more of the clan.

"If I'm right, it's not something you could achieve without assistance, however, based on that hunch, I have created a seal which I believe will make it possible to awaken the new level of byakugan fairly easily."

"And, what is it that you believe to be the reason that Hinata was able to awaken this new level?"

"There are two factors. The first is that there is a seal on my body, and that of Naruko, which is heavily kept secret by my clan. The seal in question causes my chakra to act in a rather peculiar manner, and I have a self-created chakra exercise which apparently makes that peculiar movement very obvious to the byakugan.

"Unknowing that she was prying into a clan secret, Hinata-chan has been attempting to follow that movement without success for some time."

"I see, my apologies for my daughter's misstep." Hiashi bowed his head very slightly. Stuck up or not, he definitely understood how serious clan secrets were.

"Non issue," Hotaru waver him off, "She didn't know. And according to her, it was straining her eyes on those attempts that strengthened her eyes enough to see the tenketsu."

"At the time of the incident, she attempted to follow the Kyūbi's chakra back to its source, which being a sealing space, was no different to attempting to follow my chakra.

"The only difference that I was able to determine between her earlier attempts and her successful attempt, is that she had some of my chakra in her system during the incident. I had just moments beforehand used a technique on her to relieve muscular soreness, one that sinks chakra into the target's muscles. I believe the second factor for her awakening was my chakra."

Hiashi raised a sceptical brow. "Why would your chakra prompt an evolution in the byakugan?"

"My apologies, but I will be keeping that information to myself." The clone said firmly.

"This wouldn't have something to do with the fact that the chakra pathways and blood vessels around your eyes appear to have grown significantly more robust than one would expect to see on even a Hyūga would it?" Hiashi asked shrewdly.

"The Hokage has classified that information." Hotaru said, stone-faced.

"I see."

An uncomfortable silence fell over the pair. Hiashi was the one that broke it.

"You said you had a seal that you believed would make it possible for others to achieve the same awakening?"

A nod.

"Would you be willing to apply that seal to myself to test your hypothesis?"

'Gotcha!' The clone carefully didn't grin. This was what it had been aiming for. Even if this got out, the Hyūga wouldn't do anything to endanger an opportunity to empower their bloodline.

"I would like a few days to first update several seals protecting information my clan keeps secret. I've already figured out how to incorporate an opaque room seal into a regular storage space, beyond that, however, I wouldn't mind helping you to replicate your daughter's achievement. Provided that Hinata-chan's and Hanabi-chan's position in the main family remains assured, of course."

Hiashi blinked, then, confounding Hotaru's clone, he smiled slightly, and reached across the table to ruffle the clone's hair.

"I'm glad Hinata-chan has such a good friend." He said, not elaborating any further.

He stood up, "I believe Natsu has been waiting outside this little bubble with Hinata's clothes for quite some time. Given that your real self seemed to have been running next to Might Gai when I checked on my daughter after waking up, I will not berate you for taking her to run so close to the walls. I feel compelled to ask, though, did it not occur to you that it would have been much simpler to just send her home for a change of clothes after the run?"

The clone shrugged, undoing the barrier with a slap of his hand on the table. "The girls were still in bed when I left, I wasn't certain they'd get up in time to run, let alone make an extra trip for clothes."

Natsu approached with Hinata's neatly folded clothes in a fancily embroidered linen bag. Holding it out for him to take.

"Natsu, please escort Hotaru-kun to the gate. Hotaru, I understand that you take Sundays as a rest day, I will see you in the morning in reference to the matter we discussed."

The clone was sorely tempted to tell him that he wasn't available on Sunday, just to mess with the prick for thinking he could dictate when the appointment would happen. He held himself back though - Hiashi was co-operating, there was no sense jeopardising that for a moment's petty satisfaction.

Instead, he nodded, said his goodbyes and followed the Hyūga maid to the front door.

'Phew! Good thing I decided to come for clothes! I really doubt things would have turned out half as well if Hinata had just come home after the academy let out and been confronted with that conversation. At the very least, she would probably have been banned from further training with us.'

---

Hotaru and the girls had long ago finished their run, had breakfast and were already nearly finished with Hotaru's examination to the changes in Hinata's body. Hotaru and Naruko had also showered and changed already. The awkwardness of the morning had mostly worn off through the time tested power of the pretend-it-never-happened jutsu.

The clone he'd sent off for clothes joined them in the opaque room a short time after they had just discovered something cool.

Hotaru had her try adding more chakra to her eyes, before applying the protective seal. Naturally, he pretended that the method of transitioning between the two was a new discovery.

Following that, he'd had her practice swapping between them, and jumping straight from inactive to one or the other. After applying the seal, however, was when things got interesting.

He'd followed the application up with a full body scan using the scanning seal, and had found all the changes settled, as he'd expected; but he'd also noticed that tiny amounts of chakra were being siphoned off where the jutsu interacted with her body.

On a hunch, he'd had her throw a few jyūken strikes at clones. Both Hinata and himself had immediately noticed that, when she had the higher form of the dōjutsu active, the chakra used in the strikes had returned to her body. Not only that, but they'd taken a respectable chunk of the chakra her own had interacted with along with them, the extra chakra being added to her reserves.

That would be very undesirable behaviour when using eight trigrams palm, as it would remove the foreign chakra that inhibited chakra flow in the tenketsu, but for a normal jyūken strike, it actually seemed to increase the damage.

Eventually, through trial and error, Hinata had learned to halt the chakra absorption, and even to draw chakra out by placing her palms on the target and streaming chakra out through just a few tenketsu whilst allowing it to be drawn back in through other chakra points.

Hotaru's clone handed off the bag to Hinata and bade her to go take a quick shower, reminding her that they would be cutting it close for the academy already. As she hurried off, the clone popped.

He was not prepared for the outcome of what had been a simple task to hit him all at once.

"The fuck?!" He gasped. 'I could have bloody warned me!'

"What's wrong?" Naruko asked, not accustomed to him swearing. In fact, she didn't think she'd even seen him caught off guard like that before.

"Don't worry, things kind of didn't go the way I expected at Hinata's place. I handled it, but I'll need to have a talk with her before she goes home."

'At least clone-me did a pretty good job… I can't believe Hiashi actually smiled.'

"Ah… shit." He said aloud. Naruko cocked her head in question.

"Hinata's clan are all going to be able to see the secondary chakra network soon, if we want to maintain the secret, I'm going to have to redesign the seal and re-apply it."

Naruko blinked, then remembered exactly what had been involved in placing that particular seal in the first place. She immediately went beet red. "You mean, you have to do, ya know, that again? With the standing still and everything?"

Hotaru shook his head. "It'll be even worse this time, I'll have to remove the old seal first."

Naruko buried her face in her hands and groaned.

---

Saturday rolled around relatively quickly that week, nothing much notable happened at the academy, save for Ino avoiding him for all of Wednesday and Thursday. She'd spent those days as part of the posse pestering Sasuke and shooting glances his way when she thought he wasn't looking to check if he was appropriately annoyed.

Hotaru wasn't going to give that kind of behaviour the time of day and just ignored her completely. By the time of Friday lunch, Ino was back to sitting with the group of clan heirs, although as far away from him as possible. She'd spent more time that morning looking at him that lunch than eating, she hadn't quite finished her lunch as a result.

More interesting was the jōnin the Hokage had sent to supervise their training. As Hotaru had half-expected he would, given that the Hokage was worried about the seal, the Third had sent them that one successful mokuton user created by Orochimaru.

Hotaru knew his name was either Yamato or Tenzō, but couldn't remember which was his real name, since his past life hadn't been able to recall. In any case, the man hadn't even bothered to introduce himself, just sat down on the side of the field closest to the clones doing the chakra intensive exercises and given them dead-fish-eyes whenever they tried to interact with him.

Today, rather than the day of light training that was their norm on a Saturday, Hotaru had elected to lead them in a full intensity routine until midday. This was in order to have the afternoon free to "do something important", as he'd told the others. Shika had not been amused; on the inconsistent occasions that he joined them for training, he nearly always chose Saturdays, because they were relatively leisurely by comparison.

Naruko and Hotaru were currently sitting cross-legged and facing each other, knees almost toughing inside the opaque room, which Hotaru had heavily reinforced for this occasion just in case. In the corners, and along the walls, there were several potted plants grown with mokuton.

At any other time, given that they had just gotten done replacing the secondary chakra network seals with an updated version, one that had incorporated the more advanced opaque room seal that Hotaru had mentioned to Hiashi, they would be flustered and red-faced. Given what they were about to do, however, Naruko at least was rather tense.

In truth, even Hotaru was a little nervous, but he kept a facade of total calm in an attempt to help Naruko control her own trepidation.

"Are you sure that you're ready for this?" He asked, concerned. "We can always put it off for another day if you don't feel up to it…"

"No way 'ttebayo! We're doing this right now!" She exclaimed, brute forcing her way into a resolute state through sheer bravado, as usual. Hotaru could definitely see how she'd impressed Hinata so much, there was a weird sort of charisma to the girl. It reminded him of a puppy, futilely attempting to drag the rope from its owner's hand in a game of tug of war. It had no hope of winning, and yet it just wouldn't give up, and gave its all regardless. You just couldn't help rooting for it, even though you knew it wouldn't win.

Naruko was the same way - or at least she had been. Now she was slowly growing up into a metaphorical fifty kilogram dog that had every chance of pulling its owner right off their feet. The charisma was still there, though.

"Alright! Let's do this." She said, squaring her shoulders. Hotaru regarded her for a few moments, and seeing she was sure, held out a fist.

"Bump fists with me." He said. Naruko gave him a look that just screamed, "Really?!" but eventually caved and bumped his fist when he just raised a brow and kept his fist out.

The moment their fists made contact, Hotaru joined their chakras, and led their consciousness' down into Naruko's seal.

---

The first word that came to mind upon entering the mental space was 'dank', the second was 'BIG', but the second was chased away pretty quickly by 'fucking HUGE'. It was just a hallway, but it was immense.

It was large enough that the Kyūbi had a fair bit of room to move around in there. The anime his past life had watched, had really done nothing to insist on just how big that hallway was; but then, the anime had been incredibly inconsistent on the scale of larger creatures like summons and bijū. Probably due to the need to fit them on screen while still having the other characters at a reasonable scale.

Reality didn't give a damn about that though, and here, everything kept its scale. And the scale was clearly trending to the big end of things. Other than the size, though, there really wasn't much else to see. It was a bland, concrete looking dank corridor, the floor reminded him a little of the floor in his personal dimension, in that it was a very thin layer of water over a concrete floor. Along the walls of the corridor there were huge pipes running at various heights, although when viewed with the wall as a point of comparison they looked very thin.

"Whoa! This place is dank!" Naruko breathed out, picking herself up off the floor next to him and standing to look around. "Is this the seal?"

Hotaru snorted, partly at her mirroring his own thoughts on the decor, and partly because it was a very silly question.

"I should hope so," he rejoined, amused, "Because if it's not, I have no idea where we are."

Naruko punched him in the shoulder. "Ass." she muttered with a hint of a blush on her cheeks.

"So whe-" Naruko's question was cut off before she'd even finished asking it when the answer hit them in the back. Literally. A wash of chakra laden wind smashed into them, accompanied by a rumble so deep they could feel it in their chests; the change in pressure caused them to stumble forward.

They were facing in the wrong direction; the fox was behind them. Hotaru had been trying to use the kagura shingan the entire time, but he was having trouble getting it to work properly. He wasn't even sure it was possible inside a seal space, which was as much akin to a genjutsu as it was real. It was a kind of middle ground between the two.

Both of them turned at the same slow pace. Before them, still a good way away, but not distant by any means, was a gigantic gate crossing the corridor. The ornate patterns decorating the edges of the gate, the only ornamentation in the entire space. If they looked up, and up, and up, they could see a tiny, inconsequential seeming sealing tag bridging the centre posts of the gate a little below the halfway point.

If either of them had spent the brainpower to register the sheer scale of the gate, and compare the tag, they would have realised that it was actually about the size of a fully grown woman. Neither did so, however, because they were far too preoccupied with what was beyond the gate.

The closed off space was filled with shadow, and a swirling red miasma of chakra that filled the space entirely. As if some switch had flipped, seeing the miasma had caused a shift in the output of the kagura shingan, and he could sense it there now, beyond the gate.

It was sheer, raw, power incarnate, he boggled for a moment that he could ever miss something like that being there, but then realised that the reason he hadn't been able to sense anything previously was that the entire area was completely saturated with its chakra, to a level that made everything just seem like white noise.

Used as he was to the background chakra levels of the outside world, the metaphorical pupil of his mind's eye had been fully dilated. When the metaphorical switch had flipped, it had been his subconscious turning the sensitivity all the way down.

Then, as if it had been giving them time to process so as to be able to appreciate the drama of its appearance, two colossal eyes slowly opened, far above their heads, and below them, a grin, full of teeth far too large to be real.

A rumbling growl vibrated the whole room, and Hotaru realised that whet he'd mistaken for a growl before was nothing but a heavy exhale.

"Hey, kids, come a little closer." The fox was speaking softly, and yet it was so big, and so close, that it was almost too loud to hear.

Seeing Naruko start to obey, he dope slapped her upside the head.

"Ow! Hey, what the hell was that for?!" She complained, the atmosphere broken.

"His claws probably fit through that cage, idiot." He said crossly.

"Oh, right." She said. She had a big, sheepish grin on her face, one hand rubbing behind her head.

Snarling, the fox crashed against the cage with a roar, realising its ploy was futile. Hotaru privately thought that if they'd been in their physical bodies, their ear-drums would have burst right then.

The collision, or the roar, he couldn't really tell, blasted away the miasma. The shadows receded, and for the first time they could see the Kyūbi in all its glory.

"Wow!" Naruko breathed.

"Yeah." Hotaru couldn't help but agree with her. It was too awe-inspiring to be terrifying, although he supposed that he might feel differently if the cage wasn't doing such an amazing job of containing the fox's malice.

Even standing on all fours as it was, it was about seventy-five metres tall at the shoulder. Hotaru estimated its length to be about twice that, with another hundred and fifty to two hundred metres or so of tail. They way all nine of the tails splayed out, lashing around, made the fox seem even more immense than it already did. And this was only half of its full size.

He tried to imagine what it must have been like for the ninja of Konoha to face down what had to have felt like a moving mountain, all while that horrible, hate filled killing intent that he'd gotten a glimpse of just that week was beating down on them.

The sheer balls it must have taken for the Fourth Hokage to stand alone on the statue of his own head, and stare down the beast as it charged a bijūdama aimed directly at him.

He couldn't help but grin. He was so tempted to go in there and test himself against the fox, but that wasn't their mission today. Today they were here to extend a hand of friendship, fully knowing that it'd be a long road ahead of them before it was accepted.

Naruko recovered herself respectably quickly, and, in classic Naruko fashion, introduced herself without any regard at all for the tension in the room.

"Hi!" She waved, a massive grin on her face. "I'm Naruko! Uzumaka Naruko! The one who's going to be the next Hokage 'ttebayo! It's super cool to finally meet you!" She paused, thinking.

"Even though I've only known you were here for a few days." She mumbled belatedly.

The fox stared down at her in uncomprehending disbelief. Hotaru covered his face with one hand and turned away slightly, shoulders shaking slightly as he failed to fully suppress a laugh at the fox's perplexed expression. He kinda wished he could have brought a camera in here with them.

It was just such a relatable reaction to meeting her. It was hard to believe anyone could be that dense at times, especially when she was so perceptive at others. Her good cheer was entirely unfeigned - she really was happy to meet the fox. The way she was so genuine at times like this was a large part of her charm.

The fox could tell, too. It could sense negativity, so it knew she was being honest; and that was what was throwing it. How long had it been since someone had greeted it and introduced themselves without ill intention or ulterior motive.

Hotaru took the opportunity to jump in. "Hello, my name is Uzumaki Hotaru, I'm also happy to meet you. Could I ask what you would like us to call you?"

"Eh!? His name isn't Kyūbi?" Naruko looked adorably shocked.

"No, silly, that'd be like calling you Blondie because of your hair."

"What makes you think I would care what you fools call me?" The fox's voice boomed like a wall of sound. Fortunately, this time Hotaru was prepared for it, and had created a couple of invisible screens of compacted air between them and the cage, reducing the volume to just 'very loud'.

He assumed that the voice was less troublesome in the open air than it was in this enclosed tunnel, because the anime in has past life had never shown anyone dealing with burst eardrums.

"You don't? Then we can call you Fluffy?" Hotaru asked.

The fox snarled and slammed a hand into the ground, shaking the place so badly that when the shockwave hit they only managed to stay upright due to instinctively sticking themselves to the floor with chakra.

A wave of bubbling chakra began to flow out of the fox and seep through the bars, but Hotaru clapped his hands together and slammed them into the ground, causing some trees to begin sprouting in front of the cage, sucking up the red chakra.

"So you do care then." He crossed his arms and stared the fox down. "Would you like to tell us your name, or should we just call you Kyūbi, or Fox?"

The fox stared down at him warily, remembering its last encounter with mokuton no doubt.

"Tch!" It laid down and rested its head on crossed arms, head facing away, eyes closed. "Kyūbi will do. I'm not telling some stinking humans my name."

"That's fine, I expected as much. I had heard rumours that most of the bijū considered their names to be special."

"Eh? You're not gonna tell us? That's so mean! I introduced myself to you, I used manners and everything…" Naruko pouted.

'Where the hell were the manners in that introduction?' Hotaru thought exasperatedly. Teaching Naruko manners beyond please and thank you had by far been the biggest headache of training with her. They'd made barely any progress after all this time - she just didn't see the point of it all.

"Full disclosure, I do actually know all the names of the bijū, however I will promise you not to use or share them until the bijū in question gives me permission… with the exception of Shukaku and Son Goku, who, from everything I've been able to find, want to be called by name."

A huge, slit pupiled eye snapped open, swivelling to stare at him. "How would someone like you know my name!?"

"It's written down in my clan's archives." It was, because he'd added it to one of the historical accounts of the fox himself, in case someone challenged him to produce the document in question. He'd done similar things with various other little snippets of knowledge he shouldn't rightfully have too. "How the person who wrote it learned the names, I couldn't say." He continued, but finished silently in his head, 'Because I don't want you to know.'

"What? You already know it? No fair." She whined.

Hotaru shrugged. "It might be because we're kind of related, if you think about it."

Naruko regarded him sceptically.

"How could you be related to a giant fox?" She asked, clearly believing he'd gone mad.

"Well, The bijū were created by the Sage of Six Paths, and the sage also had two human children. One of them became the ancestor of the Uchiha, the other became the ancestor of the Senju and the Uzumaki - since our clan split off from the Senju.

"So, if you think about it, the tailed beasts, and the Senju and Uchiha clans, all descended from the Sage."

"Eeeh, that's kind of a stretch." She tilted her hand back and forth.

"A stretch is an understatement," the fox snorted derisively, "Father died over a thousand years ago. Even if what you said is technically true, just a couple of generations is enough to all but dissolve a relation of blood among humans.

"What did you come here for, humans? Here to demand more of my chakra so that you can kill more of your own kind?"

"Nope! We came here to make friends!" Naruko chimed in.

"And to apologise."

The fox raised its visible brow in question.

"The Uzumaki clan has done you a great injustice, we've kept you prisoner for the last ninety or so years for a crime you were forced to commit against your will, just out of fear that someone else with the power to force you again might come along. Historical records clearly paint you as a peaceful and sometimes even benevolent individual.

"The last recorded accounts, from before you were forced by Madara to fight the First Hokage, also indicate you were minding your own business in the mountains. Even worse, the previous jinchūriki both stole your chakra and kept you in seals that could best be described as torturous."

Hotaru bowed low to the fox. "I know that what we've done is unforgivable, but I want you to know that the current generation, at least, acknowledges that we did wrong, and are sorry."

The fox regarded him, expressionless, for long enough that Naruko, who'd also bowed, feeling responsible as a jinchūriki, even if she believed she wasn't actually a real member of the clan.

"Feh!" It eventually scoffed and closed the eye. "You feel 'sorry', but not enough to let me free. I'm still a prisoner, nothing changes."

Hotaru winced. "I'm truly sorry, but we can't release you without killing Naruko, and even if she was willing, I wouldn't allow her to do that. Additionally, the other villages have developed their own bijū sealing methods since the First distributed your siblings to them.

"If we could release you, we wouldn't be able to prevent them from coming for you. Your freedom would be short-lived, and your new prison far less comfortable than your current arrangements. The sealing of the other villages is far less sophisticated than that of the Uzumaki.

"I know it's cold comfort, but at least here, Naruko has no intention of demanding your chakra."

"Right," Naruko nodded, "I'm gonna be a kick-ass ninja all on my own, so I won't even need your chakra, just you watch!"

"If it helps, although it will be a while, yet, before I'm ready, I believe there are a few things I will be able to do for you, to make your imprisonment more bearable."

"Heh, If you want to make my imprisonment more bearable, then go and kill-off the rest of those damned Uchiha!" The fox chuckled darkly.

"I'm not going to kill the children, who've never done anything to you, but I am willing to hunt down the one who forced you to attack the village eleven years ago, if you can provide a description. It might take some time, though."

For the first time, the Kyūbi turned slightly towards them, his eye-opening gleaming with a hateful eagerness. Finally! Some prospects for revenge. It wasn't the total sweep he wanted, but it was the most important one. He'd take what he could get.

"He had short black hair at the time, was a little shorter than your wretched Fourth Hokage, but not much shorter. He wore a full faced mask with a single hole for his right eye, which bore a mangekyo sharingan. He was cloaked in full black, and used a space-time jutsu to fight."

"I see, do you think there was any possibility the sharingan was stolen?"

"None." The fox stated confidently. "It was a real Uchiha, I am certain, I could never mistake their vile chakra. It took me a long time to realise because his right side felt a lot like Hashirama, but I had felt his chakra before. He was in close proximity to my previous host. Often."

"I see. Thank you. I'll pass this information on to the Hokage - it shouldn't be too difficult to narrow down the possibilities. I'm quite certain the old man will be well motivated to find the man who murdered his wife. Many shinobi in the village will share the sentiment for similar reasons. I imagine he'll soon become the most wanted man in Konoha's history."

"Heck yeah! We'll kick his ass, 'ttebayo!"

"Good~" The fox gave a sadistic grin and drew the word out.

"You mentioned making my stay more bearable, what did you have in mind?" it asked, curiosity getting the better of it.

"Well, I'll avoid telling you my more ambitious plans, so that I don't get your hopes up if they end up unfeasible. I will tell you, though, that they include remodelling this space into something more comfortable, as that is something I am certain I can pull off.

"Also, in the short term, it should be fairly easy to tweak the seal a little, enough to let you share Naruko's senses and hold a conversation with her. That should alleviate the boredom of all… this." He gestured at the bland corridor, "At least a little, anyway."

"And what makes you think I want to talk to my jailer?"

"Don't worry Kyūbi, you and I are gonna be best friends before you know it, 'ttebayo!"

"Unlikely, brat."

"You'll see. You'll tell me your name and everything." She declared confidently.

Hotaru watched the two bicker back and forth in amusement, the Kyūbi getting more and more riled up at her assertions that he would ever stoop to being friends with a human, until he eventually snapped and sent them flying out of the seal with a roar.

'Heh, Who'd have guessed, the nine-tailed fox is a tsundere.' He flopped onto his back, chuckling, examining the much bushier plants that now loomed overhead to brush the ceiling, and only giving half an ear to Naruko complaining about stubborn, grumpy foxes.

---

Chapter 18

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Chapter 18

Naruko stuck her tongue through her teeth, face screwed up in concentration as she moved on to the next problem of the surprise maths test at the academy. Maths was still pretty hard for her, it certainly didn't play to her academic strengths (which, to be fair, weren't great in number), but she felt overall she was doing pretty well today.

Which was why she was so disappointed when the fox decided to chime in.

'You know you got that last question wrong, right?'

Naruko started in surprise, looking over her work frantically. 'Huh?! What do you mean? Wrong how?'

The fox, however, remained silent.

She couldn't see a mistake. Was he just messing with her? That was the kind of thing he would do…

'Hey! Come on, you can't just chime in like that and leave me hanging! What did I do wrong? I can't see anything!'

Nothing. Shit, that was a big question too, it'd be worth a few points. Well, no matter, she was an expert at dealing with stubborn foxes by now.

'Hey! Hey Kurama! Hey Kurama! Hey! Hey! Hey, Kurama! Come on, you gotta help,

please!

Come on,

please

! Kurama!'

'Argh! Would you shut up, brat?! You won't learn if you don't do the work yourself!"

There was a long, expectant pause, Naruko smirked, waiting for him to cave.

'… You didn't carry the one on the last line.'

She went over the last few lines, sure enough, there was a missing carry. Dammit! She'd messed up on the last step of such a long problem! She smacked her forehead with one palm.

'Ah! You're right! I did get it wrong.' Hurriedly, she scribbled out her answer and wrote the correct value. 'You're the best, Thanks Kurama!' She did her best to send him the impression of a beaming grin. She never knew if that actually worked, but she felt it was the sort of thing where the thought was what counted.

It hadn't even taken her three months to break him and learn his name. Not through any great display of friendship, or worthiness, she hadn't earned it; she'd just pestered him on the matter so persistently that he'd told her, just to shut her up.

He hadn't used his new connection to talk to her much at all, at least at first. The seal was adjusted so she could tell when he was watching or listening, and could shut him out when she wanted privacy. There was a (metaphorical) mute button on both ends for talking, which he'd kept on near constantly, except to interject snide comments every now and then.

Naruko hadn't let that stop her. She'd learned to enter the seal on her own after about three days of trying, and had initiated operation Foxy Friend. Every night before going to sleep, she'd enter the seal to chat about her day and bug the fox for its name.

He held out for a respectable two and a half months, but Naruko knew he never stood a chance from the beginning. Still, annoying him like that hadn't actually endeared herself to him.

Kurama had assumed that giving her what she wanted would be the end of it. Instead, she'd sensed weakness and doubled down. She had the name, but he still mostly refused to interact with her. He didn't even use her senses as often as they'd expected; although he did use her ears more frequently, and he often shared her sense of taste during meals.

She still went in to talk with him daily in the following months, and now that she could read pretty well, she sometimes used a jutsu that Hotaru had made just for her to bring books in with her. When she did, she'd read them aloud to him, and attempt to get him talking about the contents.

It didn't usually work, but she kept trying - she could tell he was doing that thing he did, where he pretended not to care, but was actually enjoying listening to her read. She'd stopped once or twice, right near the end, just to see what he'd do. Eventually he did tell her to finish the books, so she knew she was right.

Hotaru had said recently that he was just being 'tsundere', but neither her nor Kurama, had any idea what that meant. When Hotaru had explained, Kurama had ignored her for a whole week, and he still made snide comments in her head sometimes while she was chatting with him.

It was currently August again, and for the last couple of months Kurama had begrudgingly started interacting with her without entering the seal, which had cut down her visits drastically - although she still often entered just to sit with him while she practised meditating.

It began when she was going to get ramen from Ichiraku's - as many great things did in Naruko's opinion - where Kurama had decided to request a flavour. She loved all the flavours, so she'd happily fulfilled his request.

From there, she started hearing him comment on more and more topics over time, and he actually responded to her questions, she'd felt him accessing her sight a lot more too lately.

A lot of his unprompted comments were food requests, which was a bit of a problem for her, as he had very different preferences, despite tasting with the same taste buds, but they'd worked out a compromise.

At this point, she'd basically won, and they both knew it; even if Kurama stubbornly refused to admit it.

He never muted her anymore, after all; even when she bugged him to help her on tests.

Naruko didn't think that she'd gotten anything else wrong by the end of the test - Kurama hadn't said anything in any case - but then, he might have just not said anything to prevent being pestered again.

Yawning, she leaned back in a stretch, arms over her head. Then she remembered her state of dress, and hunched forward, crossing her arms over her chest, trying to cover her nipples. Pink cheeked, she looked around to see if anyone had been watching, and was relieved to see that the only a couple of people had already finished the test.

Sakura had, of course, but he didn't seem to have any interest in girls, and Shikamaru too. Fortunately, pineapple head was trying to nap at his desk. Finally, among the boys at least, there was Hotaru. He'd finished first, as always, not taking more than about thirty seconds to read through the sheet before filling the entire sheet in one go with the inkless sealing technique.

She'd begged him, in dogeza and everything, to let her learn that jutsu already so she could do the same thing, but he remained adamant that she would only learn it when he was satisfied that she could at least perform basic seals completely perfectly a thousand percent of the time.

The worst part of it was, even Kurama and gramps had agreed with him when she'd complained to them about how unfair he was being. Traitors.

At least she was making strong progress on that front. Unlike other academic pursuits, excepting history and chemistry (which she actually liked, because ninja battles and explosions), sealing actually came fairly easily to her. A lot of the more technical stuff went over her head, so she doubted she'd ever make her own new seals the way Hotaru did, but she was pretty good at making seals she'd learned. She thought tweaking them a bit might be within her grasp one day too.

She'd even finally made an explosive tag that Hotaru was satisfied with on Monday this week!

A few of the girls had finished before her too, she noticed, Hinata most notably, but she didn't really care if they looked at her - even in Sayuri-chan's case, who was still mostly flat and tended to glare at her chest (the second biggest in class, only just edging out Ino, much to the other girl's chagrin) enviously.

With as utterly mortifying as it had been to attend class naked in the beginning, she'd never have believed that it would become so unremarkable that she sometimes forgot that she wasn't wearing anything and had a slip up like she just did. Although, thinking about it, that was entirely the point, wasn't it? If you didn't care about nudity, then you wouldn't do something stupid, like reflexively prioritise your modesty over your life if a wardrobe accident happened in a fight.

Glancing over at Hotaru, she found him smirking at her. He gave her a wink, then turned his attention back to spinning pencils with his hands. She went red; he'd definitely seen.

And now Kurama was laughing at her. 'Bastard fox.' She grumbled internally, not bothering to send the thought to the fuzzy asshole - it would just encourage him.

Still, as the minutes passed and more people began to stir, her attention was drawn back to the spinning pencils. It was pretty cool - he had five going at the same time, two on each hand, and a fifth pencil was kind of being juggled by the other pencils.

There was obvious chakra use involved, because sometimes the second pencil on each hand would dance around the first, even as the first continued to spin, but she hadn't seen any obvious chakra used on the airborne pencil.

Curious, she began to see how far she could get with the same exercise, finding that she could spin one fairly easily, but both hands at once made her a little clumsy. Adding a second pencil to one hand was clearly going to take some work; so she settled in to practice.

---

Hotaru poked at the tiny, fist sized ball of Kurama's chakra; it was floating in the air in an undulating orb above a stone sealing formation sitting on the table. He'd long since confirmed with the fox that he couldn't sense what happened to such tiny dregs of his chakra, so he was free to experiment with it as much as he liked.

And the progress he was making was very limited so far. He'd turned off his power's auto growth for this project, relishing the challenge, but he had to admit, he was growing frustrated. Fortunately, he wasn't actually able to give in and start the power up at times like this, since he was just a clone (the real Hotaru being at the academy right now). The power to control the essence laid solely in the hands of the original, which was probably why clones couldn't activate it for new fields of advancement.

"Reveal~ your secrets to me!" He commanded in a spooky, dramatic voice, holding his arms out above the chakra as if beseeching the aid of a higher power.

Around him, the panel of clones researching the same issue snorted. One of them thudded his head on the table in defeat. "Why not? Not like anything else we tried is working."

The first clone sighed and leaned back. Taking its mind off the issue by looking around at the other stations where clusters of clones were working on various projects. He hadn't turned off the growth of any physical characteristics, or what he'd consider 'core skills': his strength, speed, combat techniques, chakra reserves and control, as well as his elemental transformation were all still going strong. He'd set aside a couple of, relatively non-critical, chakra theory projects, though.

Like, this one: figuring out why the Kyuubi's chakra was so different. It was an important step in his growth, so if he hadn't worked it out by graduation he'd turn the tap back on, but for now at least, he was satisfied with the level of strength he would already have by that time, and wanted to push himself.

He had realised, a long time ago, that the truly frightening thing about his essence wasn't the passive training. Anybody could train at something for eight hours a day. It wasn't even the ability to train so many things at the same time. Naruko was testament to the fact that his essence could be surpassed in that regard - albeit by a select few individuals with immense chakra and enhanced regeneration - by clone training.

Sure, she didn't have the sheer breadth of skills training at once that he did, but she had many clones working on each important area, where his power only provided one person's worth of training on each subject.

No, the scary thing about his power was that he was guaranteed improvement. It never worried about running out of ideas, or knowledge, to push his skills higher; never hit a wall of diminishing returns, where hundreds of hours were required to make the tiniest of gains. He never had to worry about doing permanent damage to his body by pushing too far. And he never found an upper limit.

A prime example of this sheer brokenness in full effect, was the gathering of natural energy for use in the formation of sage chakra. It hadn't been all that long since he'd started training in gathering it, and yet he was already able to gather it passively, while moving around or even fighting, without the help of Jūgo's enzyme.

More, he was even able to activate the enzyme without letting it pull in any natural energy (although it didn't actually do anything without at least a trickle). Something he'd learned to do whilst trying to figure out what the transformation actually did; because on its own it was weaker than sage mode, but when used together, it was a lot stronger . Far more so than just the ability to perfectly balance the energies should account for.

The toad sages had been - personally, without having to start over each generation - practising senjutsu for centuries, over a thousand years in one case, and still weren't able to do that!

Sure, some of it was probably just that they'd given up trying due to the danger, but that just reinforced the point.

There were currently three separate clusters of clones working on their own projects - his own group, a group working on completing the ever illusive creation of all things jutsu, and the third (and most successful) group, which was working on fully developing his Susanoō.

That last group had almost completed all of the objectives it had started out with, those being to achieve all of the Susanoō feats listed as possible in the CYOA document.

The only upgrades that remained out of reach so far, excluding the 'Indra Susanoō', which required chakra from all of the tailed beasts (or at least a similarly huge and heavy chakra source), were 'Automatic defence' which he didn't think he actually even wanted, and the last two levels of 'Reduced chakra cost'. They also had yet to manage the 'Import armour/weapons' abilities, which was what they were primarily working on.

They'd even worked out 'Tailed beast vessel' by sealing the bulk of the chakra they'd taken from Kurama into a tiny winged fox Susanoō. It was low-key adorable, but had no sentience, being basically a puppet. The fox's ego residing solely inside Naruko.

They'd also lost that chakra for good when they'd stopped supporting the Susanoō to see if it could sustain itself with chakra sealed inside. It turned out it could, but it had also consumed that chakra to keep existing. It was a good thing they'd held some in reserve for further study, not that his group was making much progress.

To the clone, it felt like the Susanoō group had successfully reduced the cost sufficiently again today, that they'd only have the last level left, but they'd have to wait for the original to make the attempt to have the CYOA confirm the acquisition, that being another thing that clones couldn't do.

The clones were currently inside his personal dimension, but not the one he had first found when using kamui for the first time. Sort of. The dimension they were currently doing their research in was identical to the original one in literally every regard, except for one glaring thing. It was pure, stark, almost luminously white.

He had found it almost entirely by accident just a few weeks ago. He'd been sitting on the edge of the raised pond/fountain thing that he considered to be the centre of his personal realm, dangling his feet in the water, when he'd had an idea for a jutsu that involved using a reflection. Naturally, he'd taken control of the bubbling spring and stilled the water. He hadn't found his reflection, however; instead, the circle had turned pure white.

He'd dropped a clone through and found that when still, the pool acted like a portal between these two separate spaces. Eventually, he'd determined that it was actually the same space-time, but reversed, for lack of a better word. It was sort of like being on the other side of an infinitely large piece of paper. It was the same paper, but nothing on one side could ever interact with the other.

There didn't seem to be any real differences that they could determine, apart from the colour, but they had discovered that having the original Hotaru on one side of the divide and no-one (not even clones) on the other side, would cause the empty side to slowly start reverting to pristine condition, as if he'd never been there before. The one exception was items brought from outside.

Anything made from the material of the dimension itself, as well as anything produced by chakra that was still saturated with it, simply dissolved as the space restored itself. Eventually, he'd decided to reserve one side for physical training, and the other for everything else. The clone wished that he'd chosen the black side for R . He'd need to make some changes the next time he restored the black side from the unreserved destruction that occurred on a regular basis now that he had an easy way to restore it.

Bringing its attention back to the project from where it had been watching another him trying, and failing miserably, to integrate a simple kunai into the compressed majestic attire it was wearing, the clone rubbed its eyes to comfort them after staring at the glaring white background for too long.

"We need to start fresh here." The clone growled out. "We're missing something."

"My money says it's going to be something obvious that we overlooked that's tripping us up." A second clone said pessimistically.

"Probably," a third agreed.

"OK, let's look at this from the beginning. Maybe if we run through it aloud, one of us will come up with something. Where does the chakra come from."

"Well, from the god tree, I guess… well, ultimately from the natural energy of the world absorbed by the god tree."

"And, how does it replenish itself?"

"The Sage found a way to make it convert natural energy directly into spiritual or physical energy. We already know how to do that, though. It's how the energy vessel refills, after all."

"Well, what makes it different from normal chakra?" Clone two said, he'd pretty much taken over as the leader of the conversation at this point.

"It's not density." Clone three stated, "We've been practising compressing and stretching our chakra since nearly infancy, and even in the densest state we can bring it to, it's still just a lot of regular chakra gathered in one place."

"It's not sage chakra either. It's kind of… heavier in the same way, but even more so, and we've already confirmed that just adding more natural energy just increases the quantity while weakening it on a per-unit level because you're unbalancing it."

Clone one had been wrapped in his own thoughts since the mention of the Sage, though.

"What is six-paths chakra?" It suddenly interjected.

"What?" Both of the others said at once.

"We said that we already know how to transform natural energy into spiritual energy and physical energy… but when we did it, we were trying to recreate our own chakra. What if… what if The Sage - no, The Sage was just recreating the chakra of the god tree… What if the god tree did it completely differently? Maybe six paths chakra is so fundamentally different from ours that the very component energies are dissimilar?"

"Well, it's a great idea in theory, but where would we even start with something like that?" Clone three said.

Clone two was looking pensive though. "They were separate. When The Sage gave six paths yang and six paths yin to Naruto and Sasuke in the anime, they were two separate things. They were stronger than even bijū chakra too."

"Well, that much makes sense, he created the bijū to prevent the jūbi's chakra from coming together again completely. He probably reduced the amount of natural energy in the chakra of each bijū deliberately. He might even have given each one a different balance of yin and yang." Clone three said.

"I think I have an idea…" Clone one said. "We already make the energy we use stronger by mixing physical and spiritual energy together to form a new energy. What if we're missing a step? What happens if instead you mix spiritual energy with natural in its raw state, and do the same with physical? Could we then combine those to make a new, stronger chakra?"

All three of them looked at each other. "I mean, it's worth a try, right?" Clone two offered.

Clone one stood, moving away from the table.

"Wait!" Clone three said urgently. "Use sage transformation too. Remember how much regular senjutsu stressed our body in the beginning? You might pop otherwise."

"Right," one nodded. That was true, and pretty much the perfect use of sage transformation. That was literally what it was made for. They'd found, after many, many failed attempts, that if he just allowed the barest minimum of natural energy to saturate his body, just in order to fuel the transformation, there would be drastically different results based on the chakra he was using.

They'd tried sage chakra, unbalanced sage chakra, regular chakra, extremely poorly balanced regular chakra and even no active chakra at all. With no chakra, the transformation was barely stronger than his regular body. He'd been able to lift maybe twenty kilograms extra, but as they steadily improved the quality of the chakra he was enhancing himself with, the gains the transformation granted got more and more significant when compared to just enhancing himself with the same kind of chakra.

With balanced normal chakra, he'd seen a twenty percent increase in physical performance. The standard sage transformation chakra was only about one part natural energy to ten parts of each other energy, yet it was enough for the transformation to improve his performance in testing by nearly fifty percent over using the same chakra mix without transforming. That trend only continued as he got closer to proper balance, until, with perfect sage mode, his performance very nearly doubled.

Eventually, Hotaru come to the conclusion that what the enzyme fundamentally did, was perfectly adapt the physical body in order to make the best possible use of the chakra that was fuelling it. If this hunch was right, and the clone successfully made a new chakra that its body wasn't prepared to handle, then, in theory at least, the sage transformation should resolve the problem nearly instantly. There was only one way to know for sure.

Immediately, it ran into a snag. As a clone, it was entirely pre-formed chakra - it couldn't just un-mix its energies. Growling, it flashed back to the opaque room, stepped into the hall and popped. Fortunately, lunch had already started, so it wasn't too hard for the original to beg off for the toilet, make a fresh clone and flash to his personal dimension.

Once there, he created a couple of seals on the table, one each for spiritual and physical energy, and filled them with as much as he could spare, before flashing back to replace his clone before it left the toilet and went back to lunch with his friends. If he needed chakra today, he'd just have to pull it from the energy vessel.

It took more than a few tries for the remaining clones to make any progress, and they'd decided to split the task in half; one to combine the spiritual, the other, the physical.

The clone handling the spiritual was the first to succeed. He'd grown very skilled with handling natural energy since he first started with senjutsu, and he'd been playing with spiritual energy for his whole life, so it hadn't taken all that long really. Certainly much faster than his attempts to mix sage chakra for the first time.

Carefully, he shaped the new energy, getting a feel for it, and what it could do. It was weird. As strong as chakra, yet so very responsive. It was incredibly easy to transform, and it barely registered to his senses, even through the kagura shingan.

"Well, step one success!" He said enthusiastically to the other clone, "I think we're definitely on the right track here, but even if this doesn't work, this was definitely a worthwhile discovery."

He pondered the energy for a bit. Out of caution, he'd done the combination outside his body. "Do you think I should try bringing this inside my chakra coils, or see if the whole idea pans out first and try it with the completed chakra?"

The physical clone, who was having much more trouble with a pair of energies that all but completely ignored his attempts to move them, cocked his head. "Draw some physical energy from my seal, and see if you can't combine it into chakra after you melded them. If the theory pans out, you should end up with six paths yin, like what alternate-Sasuke got from Hagoromo. If it doesn't, then I'm wasting my time here, and we can play with that new not-chakra instead.

The other clone watched through the kaishingan with bated breath as the clone drew out some of the physical energy, and then absorbed the moulded nature-yin combination into itself, moulding chakra from the two energies as it did so.

The clone had expected to have a harder time of it, but, if anything, aside from needing to use more physical energy to compensate for the stronger spiritual energy, it was actually easier to handle than normal moulding.

"Well, it's definitely… something. It's definitely heavier… more potent, but also…" He blew out a small fireball, barely even needing to try, neither to transform the nature of the chakra into fire, nor to shape it into a ball and send it flying. "It's so easy to use. Like… like it just wants to do what I tell it to, instead of having to coax it like you do with regular chakra."

"Like using elemental jutsu with normal senjutsu?" The other clone asked.

"Kind of? But also no. Regular senjutsu makes elemental transformation easier, maybe even easier than this, but this stuff is responding to everything better. Moulding and shape transformation included. I think the spiritual energy kind of imprinted on the natural when I mixed them, and now because the part of the chakra that tells the rest what to do is so strong, the whole is just really easy to work with."

The other clone stopped to think about it. "I guess that makes sense, when you think about it. And there is still natural energy in there, so nature transformation would be affected accordingly. We hypothesised that the reason sage mode made elemental jutsu easier was because the elements are part of nature, so you're transforming the chakra, into something that's already part of the chakra. It's the same way that yin and yang transformation are so easy to do because yin and yang are already so present in physical and spiritual energy."

The clone running the improved chakra froze, eyes widening in realisation. "Yin and yang are already there, but they come only from us, they're our yin and yang. But yin and yang are also part of everything in nature, the concepts encompass everything in nature, and we're part of nature too! Our yin and yang alone are incomplete!

"That's the difference! That's what the six paths yin and yang are! By mixing nature into our own energies, we create true, complete versions of them by accepting ourselves as part of nature and nature as part of our selves!"

The other clone took a step back. "You alright there? You're looking a little wild eyed, and you just started waxing poetical about some pretty existential stuff…"

The first clone blinked, and went over the last few minutes in its head. It had gotten a bit carried away. "Yeah, I'm fine. I think it's just because my brain's running on such unbalanced chakra. I'm certain now, though. This is right. This is the answer we were looking for. This is how chakra is supposed to be. We need to do the other half. We need to complete it."

"Riiiight." The second clone looked at him through narrowed eyes. He was acting kinda… intense.

"Hey! Before we work on that, you should try activating the kaishingan! It's mostly yin based, and it already gets a huge boost from senjutsu, if this is really six paths yin, I bet the vision increase would be crazy."

"… Are you trying to distract me from completing our chakra, or do you just want to know whether our guess for the rinnegan's activation conditions was correct."

"It can't be both?" He gave himself an excited grin, "Come on, you're me! I know you're curious too."

"Fine." he smiled, and activated his dōjutsu. The world expanded as normal, then there was an intense burning in his eyes, before it expanded all over again.

"Well, they certainly look like they changed." The second clone said excitedly. "How's the view?"

The first clone had a stunned, wide-eyed look on its face.

"Is - Is this what it's like to be god?"

"So… Pretty good then?" the clone asked sarcastically.

---