18 The Passing Time

After the Shinigami devoured the piece of Orochimaru's soul, it disappeared and Shiki fell into one knee causing some worries to the three kunoichi but just as they were about try and help him, he just stopped them by holding out his palm.

'Looks like the Reaper Death Seal is costly even if I don't need to give it my soul, or perhaps it is precisely because of that that it takes more chakra to perform . . .' Theorized Shiki as he got up.

"It's done! Anko-nee is one hundred percent free of outside influence!"

"Thank you! Really, thank you!" She responded with tears in the corner of her eyes.

Shiki then quickly made a few alterations to the curse mark. It was comparatively easier than removing the snake's soul so an hour or two later, he was done.

"Alrighty, I'm done! Want me to tell you of your new and improved Curse Mark's functions?" Asked Shiki with visible excitement and proud of his masterpiece.

"Um . . .Sure?" Answered Anko with a bit of apprehension at the boy's enthusiasm towards the object of her suffering for many years.

"Okey dokey! First things first, I integrated the seal used to suppress your Curse Mark with it after refining it to be more effective. This means you'll be able to more easily call on the mark's power and retract said power after you're done using it."

"The mark absorbs your chakra and injects you with sage power, drastically increasing your capabilities. I made the process more efficient so you don't have to expend as much chakra to activate the mark. I also eliminated most of its serious side effects like mental corruption and crippling pain but they're still there just not as intense."

"Finally, since I wouldn't want you to hurt yourself through overuse of the mark which can still kill you, I put in a safety measure. Should you reach your physical or mental limit, the Curse Mark will be automatically deactivated."

"Wow! I-I don't know what to say!" Exclaimed Anko after hearing Shiki's explanation.

"Well don't worry about it. We'll be training together for at least a while, the Curse Mark has a second stage that can be unlocked after a certain period of use and level of mastery so you'll need to train your ability to use it frequently."

'Or I could just extract the info I need to forcefully evolve it from Orochimaru's soul but that'll be the backup plan.'

And so, training with Anko became another part of Shiki's routine as time passed, he created more soul clones to help with various tasks in and out of the village and accelerate his training.

He retrieved the piece of Orochimaru's soul from the Shinigami's stomach and it proved to be a veritable treasure trove of information, the best part was that as Orochimaru was still alive and well, anything he learned would also appear within this piece of him granting Shiki a continuous source of valuable knowledge, as well as a way to figure out all of Orochimaru's plan.

Shiki poured all of his efforts into becoming as powerful as he could be, he melded several elemental souls that while incomparable to the Fire Soul refined from the Uchiha clan helped to boost his affinity while being completely melded in a short amount of time.

As one year passed by, Shiki was now nine years old, the Yin Soul of the Uchiha was finally completely melded and he was ready to meld another Yin Soul. His sharingan despite not evolving into a Mangekyo, became far more powerful than a regular matured sharingan. His ability with genjutsu also greatly increasing.

Using his increased abilities, Shiki raided more secure gravesites of the various prestigious clans of Konoha obtaining new powerful souls. After refining a Yin and a Yang Soul from various Hyuga and combining the Yin one with the one he previously refined he melded them both.

Shiki wondered what it would happen considering he already had a doujutsu and it turned out he gained a third eye on his forehead. While this freaked him out for a bit, the vertical slit that his his byakugan could be completely close fabricating the appearance of a normal forehead much to Shiki's relief. He also learned the complete gentle fist and ability to expel chakra from all the body's tenketsu the latter of which was obtained from the Yang Soul.

During this time Shiki also trained in the various hiden jutsu he acquired from the souls he gathered. Namely the shadow manipulation jutsu of the Nara clan, the mind jutsu of the Yamanaka clan, the Calorie Control of the Akimichi Clan, the enhanced senses and beast jutsu of the Inuzuka clan for which he actually considered getting a baby ninken (Ninja Dog) and finally the insect manipulation of the Aburame clan.

For the last one he specifically chose the Rinkaichu, Phosphorus Destruction Insects, a breed of nano-sized, venomous insects that are akin to viruses, spreading rapidly and multiplying as they thrive on living cells. They require living flesh to survive on, and will die shortly if their hosts do, or if they leave a body for a period of time.

He made use of his high vitality and healing factor to counteract the effects of the insects until his body built up antibodies. Although a painful process, it didn't even hold a candle to the Soul Melding Seal so Shiki could handle it without any sort of problem. Unfortunately the Rinkaichu made it almost impossible to breed other kinds of insects in his body but Shiki was rather content.

The amount of jutsu Orochimaru had gathered over the years meant that even with several soul clone using the shadow clone method Shiki had enough to keep him occupied for a long time. He also started learning the Flying Raijin Jutsu but was still having a bit of trouble developing the jutsu formula that is unique to every user.

His elemental jutsu on the other hand made great progress. Fire and wind were still his greatest assets with Shiki even creating a few wind jutsu such as the Wind Style: Whirlwind Cloak that created an armor of wind around his body that cut apart anything that tried to touch him as well as increasing his speed and maneuverability in the air and extending the attack range of his taijutsu.

Shiki created this jutsu by taking inspiration from the Wind Style: Whirlwind Wall and the Wind Style :Whirlwind Fist of the unborn Sarutobi Mirai that he managed to reproduce.

His jutsu from other elemental natures also progressed at a satisfying rate although not as pronounced as that of wind and fire, with Shiki having been unsuccessfully attempting to create a new Lightning Style jutsu.

He had also learned Tsunade's chakra enhanced strength from the kunoichi herself, not only that, he created his own version which he called Chakra Burst, that expelled chakra like jet propulsion for a massive but short burst in speed and power. He also tried to use it to boost his defense sort of like a chakra armor. While it worked, he wore himself out in seconds, clearly there was a long way to go until it was useful.

As for Shiki's life outside his training not much had changed, he gained a marked increase in popularity with the girls of the academy thanks to his new appearance and his relationship with his close friends continued to improve but one day, a break from the usual routine appeared on one such normal day.

On this day, Shiki was walking with Hinata after classes in the Academy. Such an occurrence was not strange by any means as he frequently trained with her at this time of day, the difference from the norm was the group of people "stealthily" following them.

How this came to be? One might ask. The day's classes had just finished and Shiki began to walk away with Hinata but Ino spotted them, she had seen it before since she watched Shiki quite a bit having somewhat of crush on him. The difference was that today Sakura noticed Ino's burning stare towards the leaving Shiki and Hinata.

"What are you looking at Ino-pig?"

"Shut it runway forehead! What do you suppose Shiki and Hinata do after classes?"

Sakura's girly love for gossip immediately flared.

"I thought about it before too! Do you think they're dating!?"

"W-What!? Do you think so!?" Asked Ino alarmed.

"I-I mean . . . What else could they be doing?" Sakura responded a bit flustered by Ino's outburst.

Naruto who had been watching Sakura said from the side.

"Shiki and Hinata train together after classes a lot tebayo, Sakura-chan!"

Ino immediately turned towards him and asked.

"And how would you know that?"

"'Cause I train with him too sometimes and go out to eat, have sleepovers, that kind of stuff. Shiki and I have been friends for a long time dattebayo!"

"Really!?" Asked both girls, their discussion gathering the attention of the other members of the class.

"Yeah, his training is super spartan tebayo! But that's why he's so strong!"

The talk of training and power grabbed the attention of Sasuke who listened for more information.

"He knows a lot of cool jutsu. He even taught me a few but he gets angry when I start slacking Beats the crap out of me datebayo!" Continued Naruto with a shiver.

"Let's follow him!" Suddenly suggested Ino.

"Well I guess I haven't trained with him in awhile datebayo!" Supported Naruto.

Sakura didn't know if she wanted to go or not but then Sasuke said from the side he would go along so she went too.

And so Shiki and Hinata with their tails, arrived at the training grounds where Kurenai was already waiting for them.