Ultimate Project

"Thank you Tsuna-nee, Shizu-nee, for everything!" Said Shiki with honesty that surprised even himself, as his worries over their reactions faded from his heart.

The two kunoichi merely smiled with contentment but they had no idea the surprises weren't over.

"Oh right! I still had something else to show to you both!" Shiki continued, making both women eye him suspiciously while thinking. 'What is it this time!?'

Shiki smiled deviously at them and activated his sharingan.

"Sharingan!?" "Sharingan!?"

"Cool isn't it?"

"You know what forget it, I'll just give trying to understand you." Announced Tsunade while walking away.

"Tsunade-sama!?" Argued Shizune.

"Well it's not that hard to understand Shizu-nee, my mother was probably an Uchiha, that's all."

"I guess that would make the most sense . . ." Answered Shizune with a pondering expression.

'Hehehe, makes more sense than me stealing the souls of every Uchiha that died recently and refined them!'

Leaving the two women to think about the situation Shiki decided to make the rounds and show everyone his new appearance.

'First stop, Yamanaka flower shop! Flowers usually make talking to girls much easier and they're less liable to ask more difficult questions I don't really want to answer!'

"Good morning!" Greeted Shiki as he entered the shop Ino's mother was at the counter and Ino was taking care of the flowers.

Ino recognized the voice but the moment she turned to greet him she was dumbfounded.

'W-Who is this HUNK!?'

"Hey Ino, I guess change in appearance makes me really hard to recognize!'

"SHIKI!?" She finally asked practically screaming.

"You don't have to be so loud, I can hear you just fine."

After explaining his new appearance was from practising one of his clan's hiden jutsu, Ino nodded understandingly since she also inherited her clan's hiden jutsu she new how sensitive those matters were and didn't probe further.

"But wao! I-I mean you weren't bad looking by any stretch before b-but y-you know . . ." Ino trailed off.

"I know what you mean, to be honest I like this new appearance even better!"

"That's good! That's good. Sooo, what will it be today?"

"Hmm, I'll take a bundle of White Roses, a bundle of Sunflowers and finally, a bundle of Red Camellias."

After settling the bill with Ino's mother, the girl brought him the flowers.

"So who are they for?" Inao asked while raising an eyebrow.

As he took the White Roses and Red Camellias of her hands, Shiki answered.

"The sunflowers are for you beautiful!" Making Ino freeze.

"As for the rest who knows!" He continued while walking away but Ino was no longer listening.

Ino merely stared blankly with a full blush at the exit Shiki walked out of. After she snapped out of it and started to get back to work she noticed her mother gazing meaningfully at her with a "Heeeeeeeeeeeeeeeh~" making her even more embarrassed.

'Sunflowers huh? I wonder which of their three meanings he gave them out with?'

Next he met up with Hinata and Kurenai and after he gave them their flowers, he gave a similar explanation as to how his appearance changed. Shiki also realise that his new appearance utterly destroyed Hinata's progress in withstanding his presence without bushing or stuttering but more importantly, could even make grown women blush!

'Supernatural charm indeed! Too bad it doesn't make them forget all semblance of morality and hook up with a kid. I wonder how those child harem protagonists did it? Even my newly acquired magical reaper charm can't do this much!'

'Well now that I finished going around giving explanations to the relevant people, time to go back to my devious planning. I've finally got enough fuinjutsu skills to start my Ultimate Project!'

'The Ultimate Project or UP is a two pronged approach to make me the most op being in the Narutoverse! The first method is inner strengthening, to make myself literally stronger, the Soul Melding Seal falls under this category. The second method is external strengthening, things like weapons, tools, energy sources and such.'

'I've had an abundant amount of free time to consider different ways of making myself stronger namely when I couldn't move due to over exhaustion after using too many shadow clones to train.'

'One simple method to drastically increase my strength is to make myself a jinchuriki but that would make my power dependant on the mood swings of a tailed beast, granting my mountain of nearly infinite Uzumaki wisdom has some solutions for that, they mostly involve extracting chakra from a sealed beast and use it myself. While there's nothing wrong with that it still doesn't compare with a perfect jinchuriki.'

'Now why don't you just become close to a tailed beast? Someone might ask. Well other than it is bothersome and time consuming not to mention that if the relationship sours I'll lose that precious support. So rather than that I have devised a more or less tailed beast friendly way of gathering all the power I want. When I say friendly, it means no jinchuriki or tailed beast will be killed or harmed! What a nice guy I am!'

'Unfortunately I can't be a heartless bastard like Yami-sensei but I shall still do my best to win in this world!'

Now, once again in his hideout, Shiki prepared for the the first phase of his jinchuriki plan. Obtaining a sizable portion of tailed beast chakra.

'Fortunately, Minato did me a favor and sealed half of Kurama's chakra within himself in the reaper's belly thus making this super easy especially since the Reaper's Mask is particularly effective in boosting any soul type jutsu.'

Shiki already had his soul clone prepare a Special sealing pot for for the Yin Kurama. This pot utilized the most advanced non soul based seal the uzumaki possessed, the World Seal.

Originally, this seal was an attempt by the Uzumaki clan to make a livable separate dimension from reality which was a partial success the dimension could sustain life but not for long. However this was an extremely stable seal capable of holding anything so it was quickly modified to be the most powerful physical seal in the clan's arsenal.

Shiki had been forced to make another soul clone and only by combining the power of three shikis could the seal be made. This new clone would then be focused on studying the legacy while the training clone could focus on more mundane skills instead.

With the preparation complete Shiki started.

'Reaper Death Seal: Release'

Sacrificing a Pure Soul to get Minato's from the Shinigami's belly, Shiki placed it in the world seal the using the Soul Refining Seal he separated Minato from the Yin half of Kurama placing his soul in the Soul sealing pot that held all unrefined souls.

'Phase 1 complete! Moving to phase 2!'

The next step was to refine the Yin Kurama's soul but only the outer layer containing his memories, emotions and such. The tailed beast was powerless to resist and soon, the process was complete. By doing this Shiki could craft a new outer soul from a Pure Soul, one composed of soul based curse seals that would give him complete control. This only became possible due to the boost provided by the Reaper's Mask.

But the beauty of this plan was that it was a control much deeper than one using mere ocular powers. No, with this, Shiki would be able to exploit the telepathic connection between the tailed beasts. After learning so many of the soul's mysteries, he theorized the connection the tailed beasts shared was soul based and he was right because of this he could exploit it by utilizing his mastery of the soul.

The series had already shown that chakra could be shared through this connection, the only question was if he could exploit it to take chakra without permission.

'If this connection is related to the fact that they were once the same being they wouldn't be able to completely close it off even if they know it's being exploited!'

After spending two days creating another eight World Seals and arranging them in a formation, phase 2 was finally completed.

'Alright time for phase 3. Unlike the soul based connection which was an educated guess, I'm not at all sure that the tailed beast will be unable to close off the connection from their side completely. If they can do that, my only option his to seek out all the individual jinchuriki and steal their chakra in a bit rougher manner.'

As he started the formation, Shiki looked on expectantly, even using his sharingan only to make sure everything was going smoothly. As he saw the chakra of the other tailed beasts flow into the their respective seals Shiki shouted with excitement.

"YES! SUCCESS!"

But then suddenly the chakra flow started decreasing. Breaking Shiki's fragile heart and dreams.

"NONONONO, NOOOOOOOOOO! Damn you stingy bastards! Couldn't you give me some off you chakra!? It's not like you actually need that much!"

Complained Shiki, conveniently forgetting he was stealing something and the owners were simply stopping him.

However as if responding to his grief and rage the chakra flow decreased no further. Causing Shiki to suddenly shift his attitude.

"HA! In your faces! I knew you wouldn't be able to completely close it off! Muahahahahaha! My genius has triumphed!" He continued with a smug face as if he thwarted a heinous villain and deserved to be praised.

Meanwhile, in the tailed beast's Mental World they had a meeting.