Chapter 71

The war ended a little earlier than I expected. It was early September when it was officially announced. Everyone in the camp partied and drank. I had no idea where they procured all the alcohol, but it was in abundance.

Tsunade and I were among the few who didn't party. I wasn't interested in limiting my mental facilities, nor was I interested in talking to anyone. Tsunade wasn't interested either and was packing her stuff so she could leave as soon as possible.

"Well, it's been fun." I eyed Tsunade's nearly bare office while reminiscing about all the silly mission briefings we had. "I'll come to hunt you down and visit you when I'm bored." I decided.

"No need brat." Tsunade smirked. "You won't find me." Her smirk was cocky. I was definitely going out of my way to visit her now.

"Stop by and see Orochimaru-Sensei. Though he might not express it, he has been lonely." Or so I thought. Who knew with Orochimaru?

"I'll try." An empty platitude.

I shook my head.

"I let you pack in peace." I gave her a backward wave as I left. "Cya!"

Tsunade nodded.

"See you brat."

I smiled as I left.

I liked that woman. Hopefully, we will meet again.

...

It took a lot of effort to corral everyone after their night of drinking and debauchery. But eventually, everyone packed and ready to go despite their hangovers and grumpiness.

"Well..." I stared at everyone with judgemental eyes. "Let's head out."

My mom scowled. She had been the most insistent on staying as she was extremely hungover.

"Why couldn't we wait a day?"

I shrugged.

"Early bird gets the worm."

I shook my head and started towards Konoha.

I wanted to get set up as soon as possible. My Clone was ready to go and we were eager to do some experiments.

...

My Clone and I stayed home while the rest of our group went to watch the Hokage's speech. I wasn't interested in listing to the Hokage spin a tale about our 'victory' in the war. I had more important things to do.

Like, watch my Clone Eat Tailed-Beast Flesh.

"So, how's that taste?" I pointed at the strips of flesh that had been thinly sliced.

My clone rolled his eyes and popped another piece into his mouth.

"Just like chicken." The Clone deadpanned.

Snort*

I doubted it.

"Feel any different yet?" I was hoping for fast results, but nothing's happening.

My clone shook his head.

"Alright, I'll check back in later." I had to get some stuff unpacked and hidden away. And the wheat wouldn't genetically manipulate itself after all.

...

A Shadow Clone was bothering Kushina about Fuinjutsu while I and my Clone experimented with its newfound Powers.

The Clone gestured and Sand bubbled out from the ground and pooled beneath him.

"I was trying to make a dome." The clone frowned. "It seems my ability to manipulate sand is lackluster."

I shook my head.

"Not necessarily. You might just need time to train." More than two days...

The clone smiled bitterly.

"Time, I don't have." Now that his chakra and DNA were changed, he couldn't be refueled as easily. "We need to decide whether or not we want to keep this or Overwrite my DNA."

If we kept it, my DNA would be rewritten and our chakra would be compatible again.

"Or we can continue as we are while exchanging Spiritual Energy instead." I offered my idea. "It's too early to decide one way or another."

The clone gained the ability to control sand, and the Magnet Release. I didn't want to go one way or another.

I wanted to observe him for a while before making decisions.

"Spiritual energy is hard to extract once it's merged with chakra." The clone spoke, pulling me from my thoughts.

"True." But I was willing to give him my memories even if I didn't get any in return. "But we'll figure it out." It wasn't as big of a problem as the clone thought it was.

"We can start looking at Mystery Woman's DNA again." I spoke. "She could assimilate things if I remember correctly."

At the time it seemed like she could assimilate foreign cells and chakra. But I was less experienced then. I might have misunderstood the process.

"We have to find a way to give someone that bloodline or we will have to make an embryo with stem cells and fertilize it." The Clone gestured to its junk. "Then we just use the cells that are made."

I ignored the Clones gesturing.

"I'm not too interested in killing babies." I ran a hand through my hair. "Killing soldiers and bandits is different than killing babies."

Unpleasant thoughts begone!

"Then let it live." The Clone shrugged. "We just need the DNA, not the kid." I let myself digest the thought and the Clone continued. "We use my sperm and we make an egg with Mystery Woman's DNA and cells." The Clone joined me in running a hand through its hair. "It would be a somewhat natural merging of all of our bloodlines and Mystery Woman's bloodline would help with the acquisition of future bloodlines."

I wasn't sold on the idea. I didn't want a child with more than four bloodlines running around.

"Write it down, I'm not sold but we can come back to it later." It was more important to see if the Clone's ability to manipulate sand could be improved. "Let's not be hasty, we still need to look at your DNA anyway."

It would be pointless if the Clone's DNA was degrading.

"Fine." The Clone shrugged. "Let's work on mixing chakra, if we can do that you can have access to my new abilities without the required DNA."

I nodded. It sounded good.

"Alrighty..." I might need to put some clones on wheat duty. "Let's get to it."

The modified crops were important to my plans...

...

There was a surprising lack of DNA degradation. I had expected the Clones DNA to be a total mess. But surprisingly it wasn't.

"The Tailed-Beast flesh evolved you." That was my current theory. "Have you figured out the cloak yet?"

My clone shook his head.

"No, but my chakra is red and Tailed-Beasty." The clone frowned. "I've lost the ability to use the Gentle Fist and my chakra has become too potent, it exhibits a corrosive effect when used on another."

"That sucks." I like the Gentle Fist, even if I seldom used it. "Can you use Medical Ninjutsu?"

He shook his head.

"Not for anyone other than myself." I frowned. "I might not be able to manipulate DNA either."

I rubbed my forehead.

"That's not good." I probably should have expected it. "I think we should hold off on mixing chakra then." Or at least hold on for a while. Medical Ninjutsu and DNA manipulation were everything to me.

I couldn't afford to lose them until I had the Tenseigan.

"I agree." The Clone nodded but frowned a moment later. "I need to give DNA manipulation a try."

I nodded.

"Give it a go." I waved him towards what I had dubbed the 'Sealing Table'. "Don't forget to take notes."

My Clone nodded with an eye roll and made his way over to the table.

"My chakra probably won't change you, it's the flesh that you have to worry about."

I tilted my head in confusion, but the realization kicked in.

"Oh, the test subjects didn't experience any obvious change when they got the One-Tails chakra." But long term exposer could cause change. "I'd still like to wait."

Just to be safe.

"Alright." The clone shrugged and turned to the Sealing Table.

I shrugged to myself and turned back to the Indexing Seal.

I had more to do.

...

Mom, Duy, Isami, Aomi and I sat around our table eating

"Team Irregular had been dissolved." Mom shrugged when she spoke.

I nodded while Duy frowned.

"Are you Duy and Aomi going to form a team?" I gestured to each of them as I said their names.

Mom shrugged while Duy and Aomi frowned.

"It's up to them." She stared at each of them in turn.

They nodded and mom smiled. It seems they've still got a full team.

"I'll make a team with Isami, though we won't be going on too many missions." Isami frowned and I continued. "Just enough to cover expenses, most of our time will be spend training."

Isami didn't look satisfied.

"We can work it out later. I'm up for negotiations."

Isami's face relaxed and she nodded.

It seems money might be a problem for Isami.

"I'll ask Gai if he wants to be our third member next time I see him."

Duy nodded.

"He won't refuse."

I know.

"What else do we need to do...?" I trailed off in thought. "Isami and Aomi still need to be trained..." I had a Clone who could do that. Or the Clone could do missions. It didn't matter either way.

Mom also needed to be kept on track. But I probably shouldn't say that aloud.

"We'll figure it out as we go." Isami spoke up breaking the silence that had fallen over the table.

I nodded in agreement and got back into my food. This rice wasn't going to eat itself.

...

"Our main problem with eating Tailed-Beasts is getting used to awaken the Ten-Tails." I thought back to the Kumo-brothers being used as a substitute for the Nine-Tails.

"We could use that to our advantage and try to become the Ten-Tails Jinchūriki..." I shook my head at the idea.

"Why would we seal a giant chakra battery into ourselves when we could become strong enough to not depend on a giant monster in our stomach?" I gestured to the clone. "It's possible to become more than the Ten-Tails Jinchūriki."

Being a Pseudo-Jinchūriki was an infinitely better option than having to constantly worry about an immortal chakra beast that wants to escape and destroy the world. We could probably become a Pseudo- Ōtsutsuki if we went for it.

"We've got so much time." Nearly twenty years. "We shouldn't focus on something that's a decade away." Especially when there were more options to explore.

"Maybe we can snatch a Chakra Fruit from the Ōtsutsuki." The Clone suggested. "They planted more than just the one here."

I blinked. That was a neat idea.

"I think we're getting ahead of ourselves." Why were we thinking about snatching Chakra Fruits from Space-Gods when we couldn't even get to the moon...? "We can't even get to the moon, we shouldn't bother thinking about hoping dimensions like the Ōtsutsuki."

My Clone had bigger dreams then I did. I hadn't thought about the Chakra Fruits.

"It's just another thing to think about." The Clone brought a glass of water over to me. "Fuinjutsu is going to be our priority for the next few years."

I nodded.

Fuinjutsu was our key to the moon.

"Well, let's get back to it." As fun as chatting with yourself was, it was a waste of time.

The Clone nodded, left the water on the desk, and walked away.

The Clone couldn't heal, but it could still Splice, Index, Analyze, and Overwrite. So, it wasn't completely useless.

The Clone was going to analyze its DNA while I focused on my Genetically Engineered Crops.

Lots of stuff to do for the next little while.

...

Mutating the Affinity genes hadn't borne any fruit. There were some minor changes, but it wasn't worth pursuing. A minor change in how much it costs to use a technique isn't worth much when you have Kage-level reserves.

I still had Hyuga, Uchiha, Uzumaki, and Mystery Woman's DNA to play around with. Maybe I should start trying to clone them.

Mystery Woman specifically. I needed to get to the bottom of what was up with her bloodline.

Should I make an embryo from her cells and implant it in someone else?

Maybe.

"We need to start on Mystery Woman's DNA." I spoke suddenly, causing the Clone to fumble with a vial he was carrying. "We need to give someone her bloodline or we need to make a test-tube baby from her cells."

I left the idea of cloning in my head for now. I wasn't sure I was ready to bring clones into the world.

"Sounds good, I'm nearly done on my DNA and the tomatoes can be put off for a while."

I nodded.

"I need to book a meeting with the Hokage now that I'm thinking about it." I needed to get the prototype wheat and rice planted. "Do you want to do the meeting or do you want to start on finding test subjects?"

The clone and I could share memories but it took a lot of time to exchange spiritual energy between the two of us now that our chakra was drastically different.

So, it was now a once a week thing instead of a once a day.

"I'd like to look into test-subjects."

I nodded.

"Look into the apartments as well." They needed to be renovated. "Put our mostly forgotten carpentry apprenticeship to use."

The Clone nodded.

"Easy enough, I'll just need some more spiritual energy so I can make some Shadow Clones."

I gave him a nod.

"Sounds like a plan."

He nodded back.

Things would either speed up or slow down for the next few years. I hoped I could keep the momentum that I had going. But who knew what would happen?

"I'll have to send a Shadow Clone to bother Kushina." I said to myself.

The Clone shrugged and wandered to a different section of the basement-lab hybrid.

I scratched my head and started pondering my meeting with the Hokage. I wasn't sure how much I could get for Genetically Modified Crops.

The Hokage and Elders might not see their value.

I shook my head and tried to dispel my anxiety. There was no use in worrying about it.

...

I stood across from the Hokage while admiring his silly hat.

It made him look like a mushroom.

The thought cracked me up. The mushroom-kage.

I shook my head, trying to shake the silly thoughts from my head.

"So, I've modified some crops to grow faster, have better yields, and have better nutrition."

The Hokage nodded and motioned me to continue.

"I want permission to have them sown in a few fields."

The Hokage nodded easily, which surprised me.

"You can have them planted in the spring." I frowned as I realized December wasn't a good time to bring the planting of crops up. "If they do as you said, we will start using your modified crops In place of our usual crops."

The Hokage smiled at me and returned to his work.

I stood there and blinked dumbly. I had expected more resistance, more of a fight.

This was weirdly easy.

"Thank you, Hokage-Sama." I bowed and turned to make my exit.

He didn't even want to know what type of crops I was growing...

Did he already know?

Or did he have some trust in me...

I quietly made my way out of the tower, feeling slightly confused.

That was way less of an ordeal then I thought it would be...

...

I've always been amazed by the amount of useless shit people collect in their houses. Aomi seemed to collect knick knack's that she acquired on her travels.

There wasn't a surface In her home that didn't have some weird little wooden doll or vase.

"Well, I came to figure out you're schedule."

But now I'm looking at a painted wooden monkey.

"We don't have one yet." Aomi fiddled with a porcelain hand that had a kunai within its grasp. "We are trying to figure out what missions we are going to be taking."

I nodded, only half paying attention. Instead, I was pondering how upset Aomi would be if her house was 'accidentally' burnt down.

"That's fine, just stop by the house and I'll continue teaching you." Aomi was a bit of a hoarder. "We won't have a lot of test subjects, so most of what I teach you will be done with animals."

I turned my eyes towards the ceiling hoping to have some reprieve for my eyes but was met with different knick-knacks hanging from the ceiling.

Holy shit, no wonder she's single.

"Well I'll be going, keep in contact." I sent her a wave and went about escaping.

"Bye Shiro!"

I nodded and send her a second wave.

"Bye."

I got out of the house and took a deep breath.

Aomi was unexpectedly weird. She seems to have a bit of a problem with collecting useless shit.

I shook my head and tried to put it out of my mind.

I shouldn't think about it, it wasn't my problem.

...