Interlude:- Codex Apotheosis

Itsuki's Research Log

Entry Log Number -6

By sheer luck, I was able to get my hands on legendary Hashirama cells. Through studying them, my research into Yang-based healing techniques finally bore some fruit. I was able to heal using the heavily modified Mystic palm technique. The major hurdle was to bring my Yang release to the same level as my Yin release but it was well worth it. Despite being a Mystic palm variant, it was much superior to mystic palm as it can regenerate even organs permanently lost, just like when Naruto healed Kakashi's eye but on a much smaller scale and much slower. At most, it could be used over the long term to regenerate damaged organs and has insane chakra requirements, even more so for medics who already have low chakra reserves.

But I was able to determine why Yang healing does not cause damage to cells for yin creates form, yang breaths life into that form. When healing the form of cells is already there, yang chakra just needed to be properly guided to bring life to cells, healing them, or even regenerating them.

But this revelation was nothing in front of what I could discern about chakra itself. I now know why Otsusuki's have such long lives, why Snake sage is immortal.

Genetics is what determines the working of the whole body down to an individual cell. In my previous life, genetics were molecules making them very difficult to evolve because of which evolution took thousands to millions of years but in this world, genes have another component, chakra. Chakra is much, much more malleable and susceptible to positive evolutionary traits that appear in chakra and then pass on to children through genes.

And to top it off chakra under certain conditions could be modified, like the evolution of Sharingan to Mangekyo Sharingan by special chakra released by the brain upon witnessing a traumatic event, Naruto's ability to use six paths sage mode and able to withstand all tailed beasts power upon inheriting Sage of six paths while he was barely able to withstand nine-tails power for a few minutes before, Naruto's sharp spike in overall skill level after mastering Senjutsu, Obito going toe to toe with Fourth Hokage despite being just chunin level a year before but most of all Kaguya becoming Rabit Goddess after eating chakra fruit. All these make so much sense now.

Chakra is an agent of change, a change that, if I am right, can be harnessed. All these aforementioned evolutions were done unconsciously, but what if they can be achieved consciously. That is what I have been working on, the very core of Apotheosis, the elevation of human to Divine.

A jutsu that could make a human stronger than Otsusuki and beyond, a jutsu that could make a human immortal in just two steps and could propel humans beyond the limits of what even opening all Eight Gates could not achieve. That is why I named the technique Apotheosis, elevation of one to Divine status.

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Entry Log Number -16

Turns out I was being too ambitious and underestimated the difficulty of Jutsu I was creating. It had been just a few months since the Uchiha massacre and I am taking care of Ichika. Finding that she has incurable genetic disease was a punch in the gut, especially after further research into Apotheosis suggested the initial version was faulty and more than likely to kill the user.

I abandoned all my other projects, focusing solely on completing Apotheosis. Genetic diseases are incurable, it is a medical fact, and no amount of expertise in medical ninjutsu could help me save her. My only hope is to complete this jutsu. Apotheosis fundamentally changes chakra, which in turn changes the genetic code of living beings under Apotheosis. This in turn makes the body, and by proxy chakra better. This, in turn, makes genetic code even better which makes the body, even more, better and this virtuous cycle goes on until genetic errors are cleared from DNA.

This cycle can run only a few hundred times before there is no problem left in the entire genome, without fundamentally changing the DNA of humans. This is the first stage of Apotheosis. And this is the only cure.

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Entry Log Number - 45

I and Tsunade worked together to find the practicality of Apotheosis after our theoretical calculations proved it was feasible, 'in theory'. And we were sorely disappointed.

Apotheosis is all well and good on paper but putting it into practice is anything but simple. There is no proper way to guide the chakra to target the genomes which need to be removed or optimized.

But I will have to shelve the project for later. Tsunade hypothesized if a powerful yang chakra-based healing jutsu was used, it could heal Ichika of the symptoms of her disease. She even gave her signature jutsu, Creation Rebirth for this job.

Now I have to modify Creation Rebirth from Yin-based jutsu to Yang-based. This might not completely cure Ichika but it will extend her life for at least a decade.

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Log Entry Number - 35

It's been six months since my graduation and recruitment into reserves and I have finally understood how to achieve the preliminary stage of Apotheosis. The problem with the first version was it could not be sustained beyond a few cycles because it lacked a target. But now understood, it did not lack target, it lacked comparison. Some other genetic material and chakra samples to understand what is better and adjusting accordingly.

I have an idea what these samples are going to be, but first I have to return alive from tomorrow's mission.

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Author's Notes:

There were many chapters that I wrote but then I did not like the direction of the story or felt unnecessary and ended up not publishing. A lot of those chapters had the detailed working of Apotheosis, which is later going to become a significant plot point. So Apotheosis ended up being barely mentioned despite its plot relevance later. When it finally appears in the story, I did not want it to be out of the blue, hence this chapter.

Next about the arc, The Byakugan Princess, as you might have guessed is focused on Hinata. Personally, I feel that female characters in Naruto were not explored properly. Even Sakura has the label of being useless. Hinata's character could be much better, her story arc was well set up as a strong character in the first series but ended up being neglected in Shippuden. If anyone remembers correctly, she developed her own defensive jutsu when she was, like thirteen and another (Twin lion fists) later. I hope to remedy that in this arc.

But despite its name, the main focus of the arc will not be Hinata. Itsuki had returned safe and sound despite Hokage and Danzo's efforts to kill him and this will not go well with them. Moreover, the war has begun and its ripples will affect everyone in Konoha and in elemental nations. The war is on and Konoha's position is vulnerable than ever. Desperate times call for desperate measures and things get ugly when the strongest ninja village gets desperate.