212 The Ancient Seals

A full moon illuminated the darkest corners of Konoha.

If Hiashi had a choice, he would stare at the moon with his wife over spending another second in this stuffy room. It's not the musk of old Hyuga Elders that made this room stuffy for Hiashi.

It's the smell of Rot.

Hyuga Clan is infested with ideals that have rotten. He was once part of the problem, but his younger brother was kind.

His younger twin is far kinder than anyone in this room, including Hiashi himself.

"The deadline is approaching!"

An elder grunts. All wear the same clothes: Pale yellow, loose-fitting kimono under a brown haori. Their gray and white hair is combed back neatly, without a single strand sticking out.

Hiashi looks at the speaker.

'Hyuga Fushu. A decorated retired jonin from the time of the first shinobi war. His tactic allowed his platoon of 7 chunins to overcome the violent explosion corps of Iwa.'

Fushu continues in a moderately venomous tone.

"The branch family members are becoming more frantic by the day. Although we have tried to hide Mukai's existence after he appeared in the meeting with the Hokage, many speak outside the clan. Of course, as rumors. The Main family cannot let up control. They are acting like this with just one Mukai Kohinata. It only affirms our belief of keeping them in check."

'No valid strategy proposed. Just another complaint.' Hiashi notes internally.

A file of candles burns quietly behind him. The smoke drifts out from a panel near the ceiling above the candles. And two rows of elders burn with fury in front of him: four on each side. The one on the right and nearest to Hiashi is none other than his father.

In contrast to the candles burning to provide light and warmth, Hiashi feels that the meeting is aimless. The elders should be the cream of the crop to have grown old in a profession where many die young. Even if their bodies may decay, their minds should still be sharp. After all, they held a position of power for many years!

'And that was a mistake. The condition of my clan's elders makes me appreciate the new policy set by Lord Third regarding the tenure of an advisor not exceeding the limit of 10 years.'

Of course, Hiashi wasn't naïve enough to think that such a rule would apply to the position of the Hokage, too.

But that isn't the point.

'Rot has set in their minds. The elders would have stayed mentally sharp if they desired power. No. They desire complacency. None would mind if they wish to grow complacent, but they want to do so in a position of authority. Worse. Complacency in times of conflict is the slow poison that leads to an organization's demise.'

It's not like Hiashi is an excellent politician.

No. Even if Hiashi was born in this position, he spent the better half of his life honing himself as a shinobi.

He could see all these issues in his clan because it is not subtle. These issues are staring him dead in the eye.

"Let's not get anxious," Hiashi and Hizashi's father—Hibi Hyuga—speaks slowly. His slightly wizened face holds a ghost of a smirk. "Hiruzen will not make an active decision, no matter what. He will threaten us with it but wouldn't jeopardize his position by prosecuting a clan's internal order agreed upon by Hashirama and Tobirama Senju."

Hibi takes his time.

"Mukai was part of the Anbu but has been dismissed now. There is no chance that Hiruzen wasn't aware of Mukai Kohinata's kekkei genkai. Why would Hiruzen reveal him now?"

His gaze sweeps over everyone.

"Another war is almost upon us. Hiruzen wishes to admit as many branch family's shinobi under the general order. Hiruzen holds power over the military strength of the village once the War Council is set again. But he wishes to use this chance to bring the Branch Family under his umbrella of control. So, what is truly important is the existence of Mukai Kohinata."

"He is the only one without the cursed seal of the clan. Unlike Hizashi, he is inactive in all matters."

"Had Hizashi stayed put…" one elder grumbles under his breath.

"What do you propose, Father?" Hiashi reignites the earlier conversation before the men of his clan can get sidetracked again.

"Hmm." Hibi slips his hands inside the sleeves of his kimono and closes his eyes.

"The problem disappears with Mukai Kohinata."

Silence descends in the room.

Only the muted crackle of the candles can be heard alongside the faint breathing of the shinobi in the room.

"How can we assassinate Mukai without branding ourselves as traitors or angering Lord Third?" Hiashi questions. Interest licks his eyes.

Hibi lets out a short hum.

"What if Mukai's actions sent a branch family member to a deep obsession over his freedom?" Hibi muses calmly. "I do not advocate we harm our clan members. The main branch exists to keep the clan together. The branch family creates a sturdy foundation. As they protect us, we also safeguard them. But not all Shinobi are cold weapons. A hot-blooded shinobi with the right mindset and strength will scorn Mukai."

Hibi looks at his son and smiles.

"Everyone is entitled to their feelings. Like your brother is going through his rebellious phase, someone else may forego traditions and rules, too."

It took all of Hiashi's training to keep his emotions in check when his father spoke of his younger twin with such condescension.

'So an assassination. I can think of better ways to handle the situation, but I cannot risk the elders' trust in me. I hope Kai completes his end of the deal with Yata Uchiha. But, the more I face this scent of rot, the lesser my inhibitions grow for a more radical approach.'

---

Prayer is spontaneous and not a deliberate act for a Shinobi.

For example, an Akimichi Clansman would pray hard to hold back their shit in the worst possible time and not hold a festival for it. Or go to temples‌.

So, the Uchiha Clan of all clans, possessing a shrine they maintain regularly, has confused many over the years. Kurenai and Konan, too, were miffed when they heard Kinju was a regular visitor to the shrine. To quote them—The Bastard deserves a beating and not God.

The shrine is built on a small plateau in Uchiha Compound's forest. One could be respectful and climb the stairs like usual, but Kai simply used Hiraishin to appear here. It wasn't his first time sneaking into the clan grounds. He has spread his mark in many locations, and it would be a monumental task for any sensor to catch him in the act in his sage transformation.

'Even the Senju Compound doesn't have a shrine with seals.'

The clan's library was long exposed to Kai. He used to read the clan's records to understand more about their history. As for their Jutsus? They were held by shinobi personally. The Uchiha Clan followed the apprenticeship style of teaching young ones. They are like the Senju Clan in this regard.

Uchiha's war with the Senju and their conflicts after the formation of the village—he knew most of it. Even then, there were no records on Naka Shrine. He snuck into the shrine back then and found the seal. But he had no means to unseal it because it needed the clan's Kekkei Genkai.

Now Kai has a sharingan, he is more than adept in seals to bypass in other manners, and he has enough senjutsus to ignore the seals entirely.

This is no invasion of privacy.

'Even Mikoto seems to know what's inside the shrine. If I am to develop a seal to protect their sharingan, understanding everything about the clan is necessary, right?'

This is just one of the things he would do but not tell others.

Hey, he is a shinobi.

'Besides, I don't like distractions from the grind. I mastered the mokuton jutsus. Now is the perfect time to relax and spy on clan secrets.'

To play pretend, Naka Shrine houses an annual festival for the Uchiha Clan only for the clan members, and even the civilians participate.

Kai wanted to stop after the first two times, but…

He is engaged to Mikoto.

Kai sighs at the recollection of the festival. It's too traditional with many rituals, and the moment he marries Mikoto, these rituals would practically double!

'I should raze it to the ground,' Kai dreams of it as he enters the empty main hall in the shrine before standing over the seventh tatami mat on the far right.

Cupping his chin with his draconic claws as the pale yellow sharingan in his right eye rotates into life, Kai observes the hidden seals calmly.

'Nah, they aren't worth the effort. It'll be too easy to unravel the seal. Aside from the complication of the kekkei genkai, the seal has no ingenuity.'

He forms a seal with his right hand as his right eye exudes a hazy yellow glow charged with chakra.

Seals abruptly appear on the tatami mat before the mat flips up, revealing a staircase winding into an underground room.

'Okay… this is different.'

Kai frowns the moment he stares at the sides of the stairs.

The seal on the entrance was worth nothing, but the same cannot be said for what Kai is seeing now. The entire pathway is riddled with seals. Seals that defend the region physically and from spies.

And not just ordinary spies…

Kai steps down to the fifth stair and touches the right wall.

A sealing matrix makes itself visible to his chakra as he continues to observe it.

"How the fuck do seals exist that hide from the Byakugan?"

There are many kinds of seals. Kai even secured the Senju Compound in various spots to protect it from the eyes of the Hyuga Clan. The Hokage Office is no different. It all originated from Uzushiogakure. This is the reason the Hyuga Clan is not outright feared because they cannot see-through classified locations.

But what these seals cannot hide is their existence from a byakugan.

As such, a byakugan user is aware is things are kept hidden from him or not.

But the seals here can hide from the all-seeing eyes.

'And the base of these seals is all similar to the Uzumaki matrix Mito-sama taught me. But this looks so archaic.'

Things got very interesting for him too quickly. If only the festivals held in the shrine were half as fun…

He could barely understand most of it.

Most of the sealing runes looked outdated to him, but their purpose and aim are universal.

Kai marks the spot with Hiraishin and disappears. He returns a second later with an empty scroll and a brush to jot down the seals.

He has memorized them, but it is always better to note things down. If nothing else, with a written iteration, Kai's trait can form a skill for it later if need be.

He buries himself in another mountain of work before he has even stepped down the stairs to observe what the prize is. And he just freed himself from the grind a few hours ago.

[Hokage Style elder Jutsu—Tenth Edict On Enlightenment (20/20)]

[Wood Release—Great Forest Technique (40/40)]

[Wood Release—Wood Dragon Technique (10/10)]

[Wood Release—Wooden Golem (15/15)]

[Wood Release—Deep Forest Emergence (5/5)]

It's always pleasant to look at the numbers grow!

As usual, senjutsu chakra has an additive effect on every aspect of his life. If he uses wind release jutsu, he will feel a little more in tune with the wind alongside it.

Kai felt a similar response with seals. And he isn't alone.

Tsunade experiences something similar, and so do Mitsuki and Orochimaru. He would have questioned Jiraiya about his experiences if it did not give away his sage mode.

Just thinking about Jiraiya made Kai scoff.

'Is that master of Jiraiya still not awake? You know what? I hope he suffers a violent death in his sleep. Who the fuck sleeps for this long?'

Kai would have felt that Jiraiya was lying if not for the adorable Katsuyu in his wooden clone's pocket verifying the Toad Sage's story. She wasn't alone. Tsunade and Orochimaru accepted Jiraiya's explanation as the truth, too.

Kai lets go of his annoyance and focuses on the sensation of the seals.

Unlike Tsunade's admittance of her feedback from water and earth, Orochimaru's explanations of her positive feedback from Yin nature, and Mitsuki's reluctant acceptance that he feels close to the Earth in his transformation—Kai experiences feedback from… everything.

He never considered this strange until he questioned others.

And, of course, he lied without missing a beat when asked about his experience.

Even if Orochimaru may have lied, which seems unlikely since she enjoys having intriguing conversations with him, Kai is positive that not anyone can have this kind of feedback.

He did not have too much to think for his answer.

His trait makes him different.

He revealed an equal affinity with all the nature transformations when tested.

Similarly, his Trait reacted when Orochimaru introduced her chakra into his system to alter his body permanently.

Why does that matter?

Because this feedback allows him to gain an even more intimate understanding of the seals' purpose, just like how he can feel in tune with space-time when using Hiraishin.

Honestly, all this 'feeling' and 'intuition' is still weird for Kai. It's like an itch that cannot be scratched—a next goal in his sight, but with no path to grind for.

Fortunately, Goddess Grind blesses him with skill after he jots down his 13th sealing matrix.

[Indra's Tritya Panth (1/10): Forms seals and matrixes through molding chakra. The consumption of chakra depends on the matrix derived. Each level increases the speed of the formation of a matrix by 5%. Reduces the consumption of chakra at every level by 5%. Current consumption: 2090~???

Next Level: 60 SP or create 0/3000 runes.

Note: The speed of the creation of matrices will not change because of prior advancement of similar skills.]

'S-ranked?'

Kai works his jaw.

'And who the hell is Indra?' Kai continues to jot down the seal.

One thing is, however, clear as he explores more and more—the creator of these seals and matrices was a certified genius. The ideas in each seal feel so advanced, yet the runes are more than just outdated.

Some seals are inefficient, and some seals developed by the Uzumaki Clan will produce better results.

He takes a few more minutes to get everything.

There are other fascinating seals besides the one that hides from the byakugan.

One seal exists purely to connect all the other seals. Such a seal would not be thought of in the current era. Ironically, this is one of the inefficient variants of the seals since the Uzumaki Clan has a similar but better variant.

'But they are too familiar. It's not just that the sealing runes are all the same. Like this world's language, various seals have different inflections which produce different results. If the sealing language was uniform, I would have learned all of it in one go. But I have different skills for different seals for this reason. Did this Indra hail from the Uzumaki Clan? Or did he help them?'

Kai shakes his head.

He isn't interested in history lessons.

Kai steps down the stairs and enters a wooden chamber after making sure he did not leave any seal accidentally.

The darkness in the room fails to affect his vision in any manner. His sharingan only makes things simpler.

His gaze falls on the only intriguing item in the room.

***

Alternate Title: A Rotten Position; Hyuga Clan's Dilemma; Assassination is Usually the Key; Lost Will For Growth; The Grind Blesseth Away; More Seals; Invading More than Uchiha's Daughter; The Completed Grind; Tritya Panth

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A/N: Tritya means Third in Sanskrit and Panth means path or way in Punjabi. So the skill means Indra's Third Path but that would have been a little on the nose.

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