Chimera Cursed Seal (2)

Kai's body transforms in almost an instant by now. Ignoring Orochimaru entering her sage mode as the purple mark around her eyes grows prominent— the only indicator is whether she's in Sage Mode or not, Kai starts to inspect Cerberus. As the reports state, the beast's Chakra Coils have tampered but this really speaks more of Kumo's research division. Like Konoha, they must be researching Cerberus and Fukushu to learn their secrets and apply whatever possible to themselves.

Just because this dog can endlessly grow heads doesn't mean that its strength will be useful to humans. The world doesn't work in this manner or there would already be a supremely advanced race of sentient beings that could fart and crack planets at once! But Orochimaru's and Kai's wish is to only study the beast and learn its secret. The village's wish is to apply this strength to whomever it can so the war potential of the village grows!

With her senses enhanced, Orochimaru watches and observes Kai's chakra seeping into the beast. His hand is connected to one of the heads of the beast and she frowns at the realization that Kai's chakra isolates the four of eight more volatile tenketsu points that control chakra and limits it to the body's favor and keep the physical and spiritual growth in check.

"I've been thinking for a while now," Kai suddenly speaks up, "But I grew by three years because my body adapted to the enzymes and your Cursed Seal... but the major cause is that my body unsealed a few of my eight gates, right?"

"Hmm, it did. Eight Gates holds secrets to more than just physical strength. Until now, Konohagakure only has one verified jutsu that opens the Eight Gates for strength. It's temporary. But... what other mysteries it holds are beyond me," Orochimaru sighs softly, "I feel small at times like these."

"But excited, too," Kai snickers.

"Exactly." A like-minded smile touches Orochimaru's lips but her eyes suddenly widen while Kai's chakra forms a seal on all four of these points!

"What?!" She blurts out as Kai continued to meticulously form the basic chakra storage seal that he formed during the Second War to keep his chakra hidden.

"I could cut off these Tenketsu, but that's a permanent change. Even with Senjutsu, I cannot easily heal Chakra Coils. Every living being has a different composition of yin-yang and elemental natures in their chakra that forms their talents and Kekkei Genkai. But this... temporary method should give us some time."

Under Kai's and Orochimaru's eyes, the body of the dog begins to 'deflate.' It's still large. But tens of its sleeping heads begin to disintegrate and vanish into chakra that spread around and dissipates at a breakneck pace down to its last strand of brown fur.

Its lone head is still asleep but other tubes and mask dangle from the ceiling aimlessly.

Turning around and facing a somewhat peeved Orochimaru who didn't let her emotions show on her surface, Kai smiles, "See? We can finally take more solid steps."

"It's annoying to admit that I didn't realize such a simple method," She sighs and looks at her clipboard. Why the hell did she research so much?

"Don't be so hard, even I feel the same sometimes. A third party's observation helps at times," Kai shrugs and speaks from experience before pulling up the beast's lips and checking out its sharp fangs, "The only one who would really benefit from this research is the Inuzuka Clan. But Kumo already knows of the way to deal with its ability to regenerate heads and that's to unleash their gate points."

"Why are we so sure it can regenerate its head without a few of its Gates opened?" Orochimaru questions and Kai stops. That's a valid concern.

He looks at the beast and uses the [Sage's Scalpel], cutting off the Dog's head clean, and even before she could reproach at such a hasty and 'uncultured' mannerism, both of them frown. Two more heads grow out and their hateful eyes fall upon Kai but its heads are instantly cut off once again!

Three large canine heads now litter the floor but their frown turns deeper as three heads grow out. This time, Orochimaru moved, too. She cut off one of the heads while Kai dealt with the other two.

This time, however, instead of four, only three heads grow out and Kai looks at Orochimaru.

He seals the beast's two Gates once again and two of the heads crumble into bits of chakra while the main head yowls in pain.

Kai's and Orochimaru's expressions brighten upon seeing this and she brings over the sleeping serum running through the tube and stabs the head of the beast once more. The beast's pained yowls grow weaker in seconds and it sleeps once more!

"So, its regenerative skills are directly related to two of the eight gates," Orochimaru muses, "But after that, the other two should be the work of Kumo. So, the beast can naturally grow three heads during a fight but once it rests, its body must close the gates and two of its heads would disappear. But it's likely to bring too great of a pain to this Cerberus and this mental trauma could be one of the reasons for its rabid behavior." She feels she isn't far from the truth.

Kai's gaze is filled with interest, too, and he remarks with a kind and sincere smile.

"Only one way to find out and conclude our findings, Orochimaru-san... we can even test the limits with three and four gates opened now we know this."

She smiles, too, with extraordinarily sincere intent. Like a kind, loving, and gentle mother of one unfortunate soul, she nods and speaks in a tone saturated with mirth, "Indeed. Only one way."

In the dimly lit dark room with a few large canine heads around them, both of their yellow-slitted pupils match and their grins grow eerie by the second.

---

Tsunade's brows are furrowed tightly in concentration. She has many projects she paused for this— Rinnegan, Fukushu, and Cerberus. Not to mention the side project of Kai with the Uchiha eye turned into pure chakra using [Chakra Origin Seal] and other stuff that she has taken an interest in. But of them all, none came to her as easily as Mokuton.

After all, her clan's records have a lot of Mokuton Jutsus and she even has the base to learn the same Sage Mode that Kai learned, too... but she distinctly abhors those 'Monkey' skills. She doesn't need drunken taijutsu, bojutsu, and a nature-altering skill that makes everyone horny. No, thank you. She just wants to learn how to brew Somarasa and drown in its drunken glory and gamble all day long!

Just the recollection of its sweet taste makes her distracted—

"Tsunade-sama, focus," Katsuyu, on her shoulder, like an angel, chides and fights off Tsunade's devil sitting on the other shoulder.

"Alright," she huffs and silently trains in Shikkotsu Forest. Her hand weaves a few signs before thick roots and branches tear out of the ground and slam forward.

Most of the basic Wood-style Jutsu involves restricting the enemies. It directly speaks of her Grandfather's nature. He didn't like the act of killing and would usually restrain his enemies— drain their chakra and disperse it into Earth, too, at that. After all, absorbing foreign chakra recklessly is the quickest way to get some form of chakra poisoning.

But... the more offensive Jutsus were out of her class at the moment. This spoke even more of Hashirama.

He was... a genius. A God of Shinobi. His talent and skills when it comes to ninjutsu were close to no other. A man in his own range and class. Even with Tsunade's expertise, she had a tough time coming close to what he could do in his prime.

At this point, Katsuyu reports, "Tsunade-sama, a few scouts of the Gecko Clan are making their way here."

"Again?" Tsunade rolls her eyes and activates her Sage Mode before transforming into one of the 'dead' trees in the forest that glows quietly and illuminates the dense vegetation.

In a few minutes, she 'sees' three large bull-sized invisible chameleons crawling past her, and after a short observation, they left.

Tsunade sighs seeing this. The forest has yet to calm down after the destruction Kai and Kushina rained down on the area in their pursuit to have her achieve a better relationship with Kyubi. Seeing the results, Tsunade did feel that all their work was worth the result. Aside from polishing her skills now, Kushina could only be defeated by a few in the village, and that, too, not because of low physical parameters but the lesser experience.

'But... I'm not one of those individuals.'

Tsunade feels a little heavy and burdened. She could 'accept' Kai being stronger than her after some point. In the end, Tsunade didn't chase strength crazily. She chased enough strength to protect what she wants to protect. But still, she would be damned to let her other two former students cross her!

The younger generation surpasses the older generation?!

Screw that noise!

Tsunade IS young! She can be as young as she wants to be now, damn it!

Sage Mode easily covers the physical difference... but being a brawler wouldn't help her. She is good with Yin-nature release and made Iryo Nin out of it. It's practically impossible to defeat her in a single blow or even tens of it because she'll heal and get up...

But the problem is...

She is the dumb cat who taught the tiger disciple EVERYTHING. A cat should keep some tricks to itself, she didn't. Kushina and Kai have their variations of Strength of a Hundred Seals and Mikoto is making her way there, too alongside Nono. They all can use her prized Jutsu— Creation Rebirth.

So, the only viable option left for Tsunade is to learn new tricks.

Again...

Kai will most likely learn them even if she doesn't teach them to him. He and Orochimaru are obsessed with training and learning new things.

But...

Wood Style contended with the strongest Uchiha and even made Kyubi its bitch, right?

If she practices it to a certain degree, she should keep a firm position on the top, right?

Transformed as a tree, Tsunade has a rare moment of introspection.

'Competing with children... is that how low I've fallen?'

But then she recalls Nono's cheeky remarks and then she deadpans.

'All of them deserve a proper beating... no doubt about that. Especially my Paper Bitch.'

***

Alternate Title: Wood Tamer

***

Shoutout to Jjstone, Umbreon, Caleb Zimmerman, Raju Logeshwar, and Devilisinus!!

Read 30 advance chapters here—

Patre on.com/Fanharem

And do vote some powerstones~

Join the discord for well... uh, dead chat room~

https : //discord.gg/egdFUe5