Uchiha Zuoxiu thought for a moment, then it dawned on him. "You mean those monsters..."
"Focus on Tailed Beasts with four tails or fewer. As soon as you find any trace of them, report to me immediately."
His previous attempt to control the Eight-Tails with his Mangekyo Sharingan had failed, but it had shown a glimmer of success. In that case, he would just have to aim for weaker Tailed Beasts, those at the four-tails level or below.
"Yes, sir," Uchiha Zuoxiu nodded, but then hesitated. "But, Vice-Clan Head, we are at war. A large portion of the Shadow Investigation Department has been dispatched to the front lines to assist the Clan Head. With the remaining manpower, an investigation of this scale might take a considerable amount of..."
Izuna closed his eyes and thought for a few minutes. He picked up a brush, walked over to the map on the wall, and drew four circles. Based on the memories of his previous life, he marked the locations according to their future Jinchuriki.
The location of the One-Tailed Shukaku: the western desert, the future Land of Wind.
The location of the Two-Tailed Matatabi: the northern canyon region, the future Land of Lightning.
The location of the Three-Tailed Isobu: the eastern sea region, the future Land of Water.
As for the Four-Tails Son Goku, after being captured by Madara, it had told Uzumaki Naruto that it lived in a place called "Huaguo Mountain Water Curtain Cave," a name that left Izuna speechless. But since its later Jinchuriki was from Iwagakure, Izuna followed that line of thought and had the Shadow Investigation Department search the northwestern region, the territory of the future Land of Earth.
Izuna called Uchiha Zuoxiu into the room and pointed at the map. "Have the department focus their investigation on these four locations."
Though Zuoxiu was curious as to why Izuna was so certain the Tailed Beasts would be in these places, as a subordinate, he didn't dare to ask. He simply responded with a "Yes, sir" and departed swiftly using the Body Flicker Technique.
"I'll put off exchanging for the Flying Thunder God: Third Step for now."
After Zuoxiu left, Izuna sat cross-legged on the veranda of his courtyard. He opened the two scrolls he had taken from Sage Island, placing one on his left and one on his right. The one on the right contained a summary from the Jugo clan's ancestors about the risks of Sage Art. The very first point stated: *When practicing Sage Chakra, one must be supervised by an experienced practitioner. It is crucial to prevent the trainee from absorbing too much natural energy while gathering Sage Chakra, which risks them going berserk or even dying.*
"Well then... I'll use this method."
Izuna brought his index and middle fingers together to form a cross seal. With a "poof," he created a shadow clone.
The clone sat cross-legged, then raised its hands and joined its index and middle fingers to form the "Ram" hand seal. Following the instructions on the scroll, it began to attempt to gather Sage Chakra.
*POOF!*
Two full hours passed. Izuna, who was watching with his Sharingan active, had just noticed a trace of Chakra flow in the clone similar to what he had seen from Hihiko and the others on Sage Island when the clone exploded into a puff of smoke.
Not willing to give up, Izuna created three more shadow clones at once, but the result was the same. The moment a hint of Sage Chakra began to form within them, they would all self-destruct.
*Can't shadow clones handle natural energy?*
He had no choice but to admit it: using shadow clones to mitigate the risks of practicing Sage Art was impossible. He remembered how in the future, when fighting Pain, Uzumaki Naruto had used shadow clones that had gathered Sage Chakra, dispelling them to instantly recover his own. But that was after he had already mastered Sage Mode. Besides, Izuna wasn't learning at Mount Myoboku; Uzumaki Naruto was not a valid reference.
"No choice..." he muttered, forming hand seals again to create another shadow clone.
But unlike the previous times, this time it was the real Izuna who sat down cross-legged. The shadow clone stood by to supervise, ready to intervene immediately if there was any sign of natural energy going out of control. With the experience from the clones passed back to his original body, Izuna found practicing Sage Art to be much more intuitive.
Feeling a strange sensation from his Dantian, Izuna, who was sitting cross-legged with his eyes closed, felt his eyelids twitch. Unconsciously, Sage Art markings like the Cursed Seal Orochimaru had placed on the future Uchiha Sasuke began to spread erratically across his skin.
But more dangerous still was the bizarre transformation his own body was undergoing, just like the grotesque changes he had seen on the old man Hihiko during their fight on Sage Island.
The Shadow Clone's expression changed. As problems arose in the original's body, it too was affected and on the verge of disappearing.
In the moment of crisis, the Shadow Clone quickly drew a shuriken and threw it, piercing Izuna's shoulder.
*Poof!*
An instant later, the clone vanished in a puff of white smoke.
A sharp pain lanced through his shoulder, jolting Izuna out of his Sage Transformation. His body immediately returned to normal.
The clone's final memories flooded into his mind. To his astonishment, Izuna realized he hadn't noticed a single thing wrong while his body was contorting.
*Is this the side effect of becoming one with nature?* Izuna thought, a lingering fear in his heart.
When fusing with natural energy to gather Sage Chakra, the practitioner himself doesn't notice even if his body begins to mutate. In that, he was just like Uzumaki Naruto. It was the reason so many practitioners on Mount Myoboku failed their Sage training and turned into stone frogs.
And when his body mutated, his Shadow Clone was affected and would disappear.
If not for that last shuriken, he might very well have died at the hands of Sage Chakra.
"Dammit. Do I need to find someone to help me?"
A Shadow Clone could no longer serve as an assistant. What if it disappeared before it could stop a Sage Transformation gone rampant?
But Izuna didn't want the entire clan to know he was practicing Sage Art.
If he had to find someone, the only option was Uchiha Madara, who was still fighting on the front lines.
Though Izuna wasn't exactly keen on letting Madara know about this either.
"No choice. I'll just have to try this."
This time, Izuna first formed the "Serpent" hand seal, then the cross-shaped seal for a Shadow Clone, once again creating a duplicate.
But this was different from his usual clones. It was a new jutsu he had created himself through shape transformation: Lightning Release: Shadow Clone.
It was an A-rank ninjutsu, capable of withstanding a certain degree of damage compared to a normal Shadow Clone. Furthermore, upon being defeated, it could release a current of electricity to paralyze the enemy.
***
"Vice-Clan Head, my apologies for the delay. We've currently discovered traces of a Tailed Beast here. It has three tails and the appearance of a turtle."
Uchiha Zuoxiu knelt before Izuna, handing him a small map. A location on it was marked with a red drawing.
More than twenty days had passed since Izuna had given the order to find the Tailed Beasts. By the Shadow Investigation Department's previous standards, this was a long time.
But the department was short on manpower, and the Tailed Beasts all lived in remote wildernesses far from human civilization.
Even with the general directions Izuna had provided, finding them was no easy task.
During this time, Izuna's mastery over the Sage Transformation had improved slightly.
At the very least, he wouldn't so easily fall into a crisis of rampaging natural energy, but true Sage Mode was still a distant dream.
He couldn't recall how long it took Uzumaki Naruto to master Sage Mode in the original story, but his own progress was definitely far slower.
The difference in growth between fumbling through it alone and having a sage's guidance was like night and day.
"This location... it's very close to the Land of Whirlpools... No, I should say it's very close to the Senju." Izuna frowned.
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