7 Incorporating Research and Entertainment

Author's Note

I changed my mind and I'm keeping it just Sasuke and Hinata for now. I might form Team Taka later, but I think for now they'd be fine on their own.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Hinata and I appeared in one of Orochimaru's bases and headed down into his lab. Making our way inside, we found a storage with tons of different DNA samples.

"Orochimaru spent most of his time researching kekkei genkai in order to learn how to incorporate them into his body. He was waiting till he got my body to put that research to use. We can use it for ourselves." I said to Hinata.

"So what kekkei genkai are you trying to incorporate?" Hinata asked.

"There's one I think would help both of us, while there's another one that would fit me and one that would fit you."

"So what is the one that fits both of us." Hinata asked.

"Do you remembered Suigetsu?" I asked.

Hinata nodded. We had both met a large variety of Orochimaru's test subjects, as we were the only ones given free rein to go places. The rest were confined to their specific hideouts.

"Orochimaru was successful in figuring out how to incorporate his ability to turn into water into another person's body. The ability will take on the user's affinity, so you would gain the ability to turn into water much like Suigetsu, while I would get the ability to turn into either fire or lightning, I'm unsure which." I said.

"What about the one unique to each of us?"

"I want to incorporate Jugo's sage kekkei genkai, but I want to wait until I receive sage training from the snakes. For you, I thought it would be good for you to have the swift release to increase your taijutsu speed even further. You have to wait so that your body has time to adapt, so we'll wait for that one as well."

"Alright so how do we do it?" Hinata asked.

"I'll create a clone that will perform the operation on each of us." I said, forming two clones.

We both moved towards the operating table, undressing and lying down. Even if we hadn't taken that final step, neither of us was unfamiliar with the other's body. The only reason we hadn't gone that far yet was that I needed to finish my business with Itachi. It would be a cloud hanging over me until I finally confronted him.

The two clones used a jutsu to put us under so they could perform the operation.

We woke up some time later, sitting up on the operating table. My clones dispelled, giving me the memories of the operation, with all going well. My clone had to make use of my emotional control when operating on Hinata, though.

We both got dressed and I turned to Hinata.

"Can you feel it?" I asked.

The it I was referring to was a sense of connection with an element. It seems that my fire affinity was the one the kekkei genkai took to. I could feel my affinity with fire strengthened even further.

"Yes I can, I can even sense the water in your body." she said.

With a thought, my entire body turned into fire. It was strange being composed entirely of flames at first, but it felt right, like I was missing out and now I was complete.

Hinata across from me similarly turned into water.

"This feels great." Hinata said.

"Yeah, we'll need to work on incorporating this into how we fight, but this is a good boost." I replied.

'Attack will be able to pass right through us now.'

We both reformed and made our way out of the base.

"The next place we need to go is Kumogakure." I said.

"So it's time to start finding the tools?" Hinata asked.

"Yes, but I only know where one is for sure, so we'll have to figure out what we want to do from there. Is there anywhere you want to go after Kumo?" I asked Hinata after realizing that we had spent most of our time planning what to do in pursuit of my plan, but had never talked about what she wanted.

"I'd like to see Konoha again, at least to see what's happened to the rest of our class and my clan, but that can wait until after we find Itachi." Hinata said after some thought.

"Alright, we'll go to Kumo and get the tool, find Itachi, and see what's happened in Konoha afterwards." I said.

With our path set out, we started walking in the direction of Kumo. We didn't rush there, taking the time to continue experimenting with our new abilities.

Hinata and I both became proficient in shifting between our two forms. We spent a lot of time sparring, improving our reactions with our shifts to the point that the ability to shift to avoid attacks had become a reflex instead of requiring conscious effort.

I had also taken the time to take a page out of someone else's book, and developed technique's for use in my fire form. One of which was creating a wave of fire by punching out with my fist, which was one of my favorites.

Hinata, on the other hand, had worked on using her enhanced affinity with water. Now that she could sense water everywhere, she worked on manipulating that water through shear elemental manipulation. She was making progress on manipulating the very blood in a person's body to control them, which would make her terrifying when she had it perfected.

It took a little while, but eventually we made it to the Land of Lightning and were almost to Kumo. We made our way up through the cliffs, eventually reaching Kumo.

"So do you want to do this with force or with stealth?" I asked Hinata.

"Let's try stealth first, and if that fails we'll go with force." Hinata replied.

"Alright let's move."

Hinata turned into a puddle and slid threw the cracks in Kumo's wall, making her way inside and towards the Raikage tower. It was slow going for her, but eventually she made it into the office. The Raikage was currently out, but Hinata could see his guards still in the room with her Byakugan. She made her way through a door to the side, and found a pot sitting on top of a pedestal. Reforming, she activated a seal on her wrist.

I appeared in the room in a flash. I had marked Hinata with a Flying Raijin mark as soon as I got it useable, so that I could appear in front of her whenever we needed it.

'So this is one of the Treasured Tools of the Sage of Six Paths.'

Neither of us spoke so as to not alert the guards outside. I could see a seal where the pot was sitting, but it would take me a while to completely dismantle it, so I just took the pot. An alarm was set off as the guards outside came into the room.

"Force it is." I said.

Hinata moved quickly, disabling guard after guard as she close their chakra points, shifting into water to allow attacks from behind to go through her.

Sealing the pot into my storage seal, I quickly joined her in incapacitating them. We then made our way out of the tower to find the Raikage and Killer B standing in front of us.

"Stop and give yourselves up and you might survive." the Raikage said.

"You know, we could've been far gone by now. You just want to fight them don't you." Hinata said with a teasing smile on her face, ignoring the Raikage.

"Don't act like you don't want to." I snarked back.

Looking at the two men in front of us, I thought about what the best strategy here was.

'I can definitely take the Raikage. The third Raikage managed to fight the Hachibi, it'd be a good test of my Lightning Cloak to see how I fare against it.'

"Hinata, you take the Raikage, I'll get the Hachibi jinchuriki." I said.

Hinata nodded and I moved, charging at Killer B. B reacted quickly, throwing his swords into the air and allowing them to fall onto the right places on his body. Unsheathing my sword, I swung towards B. My sword was blocked as B's erratic Kenjutsu style made it somewhat hard to predict his movements.

Meanwhile, Hinata was charging the Raikage, hand lit up with chakra. The Raikage was covered by his Lightning Armor as he moved quickly, dodging her strikes. He jumped back, gaining some distance and attempted to arm bar her, but Hinata moved to the side, dodging the charge. She couldn't shift into her water form, as lightning was it's counter, so she'd have to rely on her other skills to win the fight.

To counter B's 8 swords, I grew bones out bone spikes along my entire body. I met each of B's swords with a bone, blocking his strikes. We continued to clash, bone against sword, when I changed up my strategy. The next time we went to clash, I shifted to fire, phasing through B, damaging slightly with the fire, and reformed behind him, striking at his exposed back. B reacted quickly, however, summoning tentacles out of his back to block the strike.

While this was happening, Hinata was standing waiting for the Raikage to charge again. She had spent a lot of time sparring against me, so she was used to reacting to someone with speed greater than the Raikage. When he charged next, she dodged slightly and quickly delivered a series of palms to one of his arms, disabling it.

The Raikage gained some distance from her as he looked confused. "I've fought Hyuga, your palms shouldn't pierce my armor."

Hinata just smirked. It was a strategy she had come up with when sparring with me. When I would use my Lightning Cloak originally, she couldn't pierce it with the palms so she started using her wind infused Gentle Fist to allow her blows to connect. It no longer worked on me because my Lightning Cloak was so dense that even her wind palms couldn't pierce it, but for the Raikage it was sufficient.

I backed away from B and formed a drill with one of my arms out of bones. I then blitzed forward, driving the drill towards B's midsection. He brought all of his blades to block it, but my bone drill shattered all 8 of the blades, connecting with his mid section and cutting into his chest before he managed to form tentacles to push himself away from me.

B and the Raikage regrouped as Hinata and I stood next to each other.

"I know who you two are, Sasuke Uchiha and Hinata Hyuga, the deserters of Konoha, what do you want the tool for?" The Raikage asked.

Ignoring him again, I turn to Hinata and say "This is no longer fun, B's not going to let the Hachibi out in the village."

"Alright let's leave." Hinata said.

"Do you two really think you can escape? Even if you can keep up with B and I, we've got an entire village to back us up." the Raikage said.

"Yep I'm 100% certain we can, watch." I say before I shift into fire and form a wall of fire all around us. I then grab Hinata and use the Flying Raijin to return to the base we had done our operations at.

Looking at Hinata, I say "Well that was a nice workout. I really wanted to fight the full tailed beast though."

"It's fine, we'll get another fight some other time, you need to get to work with the pot." Hinata reminded me.

"Alright, it'll probably take a little while for me to succeed, so we'll be here for some time."

"That's fine, I can train here."

Hinata moved a little ways away from me to train while I took out the Amber Purifying Pot.

'So this is one of the tools the Sage of Six Paths used. Hopefully some of his chakra is still here.'

Pushing some of my chakra into the pot, I could feel it get drained. For a brief moment when my chakra made contact with it, I could sense another chakra there, making up the majority of the pot. I continued to push more and more chakra into it, so that the other chakra would appear consistently. Noting the way the chakra interacted with mine, and the chakra signature it had, I stopped pushing chakra into the pot.

For the next few days I spent time altering a seal I had made previously to accommodate the type of chakra I sensed in the pot.

'One step closer. I'll be ready when the time comes.'