I'll upload chapter 11 if we hit 55 powerstones.
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"How does it feel to be a Jinchuriki?"
Hidetada chewed the rice in large mouthfuls as he asked the question curiously. Mito paused in her movements as she heard him. Raising an eyebrow, she couldn't help but wonder where that had come from.
"It's... nothing special," she began, her eyes narrowed in thought. "The decision was more of a spur of the moment thing that occurred after Hashirama had defeated Madara. He did not have an answer about what to do with the Kyuubi; as a result, I suggested that I seal it into myself, which was unheard of at that time."
His grandmother puffed her chest out in a proud, exaggerated way before continuing, "No one had even thought that something like that would be possible. Except me, and I succeeded in sealing it in myself on my first try without any practice." Mito picked up her chopsticks and pointed at him with a smirk. "You should learn a thing or two from your awesome grandmother."
Hidetada snorted at her words as he gulped down the rice he was chewing. "What about the emotional stress, though? Did you not experience people being scared of you?"
Mito looked at him weirdly before replying, "Why should they fear me? I was met with applause and much respect when I returned after achieving such an unprecedented thing."
It was Hidetada's turn to look weirdly at her as he spoke. "What do you mean? Did no one think that you were a demon that could unleash the prowess of the terrifying Nine Tailed Beast upon them?"
A scoff escaped her red lips at his words, "People back then just knew about the Tailed Beasts from hearsay rumors; most did not even believe that they existed. So why would they fear something that they knew nothing about? And moreover, they trusted my Fuinjutsu skills in making sure that it never espaced."
Hidetada silently nodded his head at her statement. From what he knew from the original series, the Tailed Beasts had preferred to leave humans alone before they were captured, so the logic behind it made sense. It was probably only after seeing the destruction and death caused by a controlled Kurama during that particular day that people had begun to fear and resent Naruto. On the other hand, with his grandmother, the Kyuubi had never gone out of its way to commit massacres voluntarily; it preferred to be left alone. As the years went by and no accidents involving the Jinchuriki occurred, the fear of the people should have become nonexistent. That still left him with just one more question, however. "Have you tried talking to the Nine Tailed Beast?"
Mito frowned at his words before replying, "Try and talk to a mindless beast filled with just malice and hatred? I would make more progress talking to a brick wall." With a shake of her head, she continued, "You have not felt its chakra, but I have. It's a vile, corrosive thing that yearns to destroy everything around it. The Kyuubi is better left alone, locked under a dozen chains where it cannot move an inch."
It was sort of surprising hearing that, especially when he knew that Kurama wasn't all that bad in the original anime. But it made sense from her perspective. Still, how could someone live so many years without the urge to talk to the beast contained within them? If he could make her gain a powerup just by suggesting she talk to the Nine Tailed Beast, then why not?
"Even then, have you actually tried to talk to it? I don't think such a massive creature would be just a mindless beast," Hidetada suggested, gauging his grandmother's reaction by the way her face tightened.
Scoffing derisively, she replied to his words, "Your grandfather was the only person to talk to the beast except for me, and he agreed that it was just malice made flesh with no mind of its own."
Hidetada frowned in thought as he considered the timeline. As far as he could remember, Hashirama had never spoken to Kurama in the original anime; then again, at the end of the day, it was just that, an anime. Everything inside of it should be taken with a grain of salt. However, it was confusing to hear that the First Hokage, known for being gentle and kindhearted, would say something like that about the Tailed Beasts. Had none of them tried talking to him while he was capturing them? But, Hashirama had always been focused more on the peace of humanity as a whole rather than the peace between the Tailed Beasts and humans.
"You wouldn't know for sure until you have tried talking to it." He threw one last attempt at convincing her to talk to the Kyuubi, yet her dismissal was just as cold as he had expected.
Having nothing left to say, Hidetada focused his attention back on shoving down the food arrayed in front of him. It was not like Mito needed the power boost given by Kurama anyway; she was plenty strong already, one of the strongest in the entire village, even.
Though he still felt bad for the Kyuubi; being trapped inside for dozens of decades, tied to a rock and having nothing to do except brood was probably not very good for a state of mind. How had he even stayed sane throughout the entirety of the show? If it was Hidetada locked inside, he would have probably lost his mind already. Then again, time was probably not the same for the Nine Tailed Beast as it was for humans. What seemed like decades to them would probably just be minutes if not seconds to him.
How old even was he, anyway? There was not much information available to him about that. For centuries, shinobis had been more focused on surviving and inventing new ways to kill each other than wandering and figuring out the secrets of the world.
Not wanting to disturb the silence, he went back to eating his food. Once he was finished, he arranged the various cups and plates on his side with a practiced neatness before standing up and bidding her goodbye, promising to come early this time.
Closing the door behind him, Hidetada expertly navigated the winding, shadowed hallways of the Senju Compound. Today was the day he was going to succeed in weaving Fuinjutsu and Mokuton together. He could feel the anticipation thrumming in his fingertips.
'I mean, it's only been a day since I actually started to attempt this,' he thought with an amused smirk. It was truly a gift, being a natural genius at everything he touched. Shaking off the arrogance, he turned his focus back to walking toward the exit of the compound.
Stepping into his geta, he used Shunshin to flicker out of the compound, his body blurring into a displacement of air as he moved rapidly through the rooftops of Konoha to enter the depths of the Forest of Death.
Jumping the fence of the training ground, he landed inside. A quick, instinctive scan let him know that there was no one inside today.
Sitting down on the moss covered surface of a massive rock, Hidetada folded his legs and leaned his chin on his fist, musing silently. What should he call this new combination of Fuinjutsu and Wood Release? It couldn't be called a normal jutsu anymore, could it?
Another bizarre quirk of this world was the necessity of calling out the name of a jutsu before using it. It was somewhat like a Rule of Cool that seemed to be etched into the physics of this world; proclaiming the name of the technique before using it provided a boost in its potency. Even thinking about it was utterly baffling. For a world that could be so gritty and realistic, this was the most cartoonish, anime-ish thing that he had encountered. Even more astounding was the fact that no one except for him seemed to research why it worked. They just accepted it. Though considering the existence of Hagoromo, maybe it was not that absurd.
The less he thought about it for now, the better.
Returning his focus to the experiment, he weighed his options. A number of jutsus flashed through his mind as he thought. Most of the Mokuton in his arsenal was just too destructive and would simply annihilate the entirety of the Forest of Death before he could observe whether the modifications had even worked. A few more techniques flashed through his mind before he finally settled on the Wooden Dragon Jutsu. It was small enough to observe the details and versatile enough to be experimented on.
What about the Fuinjutsu, though? Which one to use? The Wooden Dragon already had the ability to absorb chakra and detonate on impact, so maybe something that extended the range of its chakra absorption? Wood Release was already incredibly strong and resilient as it was a combination of Earth and Water Releases. The Earth release gave it its durability and the Water Release protected it from Fire Jutsu, so something related to increasing its toughness was not needed.
Standing atop the rock, his hands flashed through seals with a speed that blurred the fingers, finally locking into the familiar weight of the Snake sign.
The air in the forest grew heavy, thick with the sudden, overwhelming pressure of his chakra saturating the very motes of dust in the air. Beneath him, the earth let out a deep groan. Dirt and subterranean water began to coalesce in a churning, muddy vortex, swirling together with a fluid grace. Then, the ground burst. A massive, serpentine head of pale timber erupted from the soil, its jaws unhinging in a silent, terrifying snarl. The wood that made up its body moved with a terrifying fluid grace, the bark twisting into the shape of a nightmare. It let out a screech that involved the friction of wood grinding against wood, a reverberation that shook the leaves from the nearby trees.
"Wood Release: Wood Dragon Jutsu!"
The words were almost swallowed by the dragon's second, thunderous roar. The forty foot creature spiraled into the air; its body was made up of jagged, bone-white timber and thorny protrusions. It curled around Hidetada protectively, its draconic head resting above his shoulder. Engraved deeply into the center of its forehead was the swirling, squiggly script for 'Absorption', the Kanji glowing with a faint, hungry light.
(Image)
He whistled appreciatively. The creature was already siphoning chakra from Hidetada himself and feeding it back to him; the sheer amount of chakra it drained would have been enough to kill anyone else.
Pointing his palm toward a monstrous oak tree, Hidetada gave the command. The dragon rushed forward, its serpentine body writhing through the air with a hypnotic grace. It reached the tree in a blur, its jaws snapping shut around the massive trunk.
The effect was instantaneous. The vibrant green of the oak's leaves turned a jaundiced yellow and then a brittle grey in a single second. The chakra from the tree was sucked out until it began collapsing. The shaft and branches crumbled into a fine, ghostly white ash that drifted away on the wind like snow.
The Wooden Dragon raised its head, letting out a victorious rumble as it looked back at Hidetada with an oddly expectant tilt of its head. How could something so terrifying look so cute?
Unfortunately, it needed to die, all in the name of science.
Flashing through a new set of signs, Hidetada inhaled deeply, his chest expanding as his hands locked into the Bird seal. He infused the air in his lungs with chakra, compressing it until it burned.
"Wind Release: Vacuum Great Sphere."
A massive, shimmering orb of pressurized air tore through the space between them, hurtling toward the dragon with the force of a hurricane. It slammed into the creature's head, obliterating the wood in a violent explosion of splinters and dust.
Hidetada cut off the supply of chakra needed for the Wooden Dragon to regenerate its head. He commanded the headless body to strike another tree, and as he expected, it did not do anything except almost uprooting it.
This was a bit of a predicament.
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Word Count: 2056