Part 22 – Sage Mode

As the weeks passed, Uzu slowly fell into a very comfortable routine.

She would create lots of wood clones to practice whatever she liked in the forest, while she mostly just lied down in piles of fur and relaxed.

At times she painted, at times she practiced her katas, at times she just slept.

Her favorite time of the day was the evening though. Sometimes she would have the chance to talk with Naruto … and when he had told her that Hinata had confessed to him sometime after they left, and that he had told her that he loved someone else, Uzu felt giddy and warm inside.

She knew that he hadn't thought about any other woman intimately, as her seal hadn't burned on her palm. Their bond would break if either of them betrayed the other. That's the full extent of their vow and promise.

…

At some point, Uzu had asked Tsunade whether there was anything else that she could learn … she had already read every medical book available in Konoha, even the big book that the Nara possessed.

Fuuinjutsu took time and she couldn't rush that. She also hadn't really had any inspiration to create an entirely new seal lately.

Sure, there were some things that she could do. For example, when Naruto had told her about his idea to change the Rasengan's chakra nature and how it had nearly destroyed his arm some time back when she was on her journey, she had also tried to infuse wood release chakra into it, but it just didn't work at all.

After hearing about Gaara's sand armor, which she had forgotten before, she decided to try creating a wooden armor around her body.

After some experimenting, she created a new jutsu, Wood Release: Wood Armor. Sure, its name wasn't really creative, but it did its job.

Her body would be covered by an exact copy of her features, including her clothes, and if she continuously fed chakra into it, it would repair when broken and stick to her.

It needed techniques of high power to destroy it … normal taijutsu or normal weapons would never be able to reach her again.

Anyway, after asking her Mom for more interesting jutsu that she thought would interest Uzu, she was given a huge scroll filled with other forbidden jutsu.

"Just learn whatever you want, I trust that you won't give this to anyone else though." Her Mom had said and Uzu wouldn't disappoint her.

Across the weeks, she had found many interesting jutsu in the scroll.

For example, the shadow clone technique that Naruto used often. She didn't need it, but it was interesting, so she decided to properly memorize the information about it found in the scroll.

They were very similar to her own wood clones.

Another interesting thing was the Uzumaki seals and techniques in the scroll.

My chains are really unique, aren't they?

A normal Uzumaki's chains are a technique that they use to form their chakra into chains, while mine are created from my body itself.

She decided to learn the "Adamantine Sealing Chains"-Jutsu. Using it on one of her clones, golden chains rushed out of her body and totally immobilized her clone, also suppressing its chakra. But she found that she couldn't absorb it.

Interesting.

She also learned the Four Symbols Seal, and the advanced form of that, using two of the same, the Eight Trigrams Seal. She recognized the seal as the one Naruto had shown her sometime ago. Those two seals were used to seal larger, evil-natured creatures into an object or a human's body.

The Uzumaki section held two more techniques that she also made sure to learn, the Sealing Jutsu: Reaper Death Seal and the Heal Bite- technique.

They would both be useful in situations that warranted drastic means.

Another jutsu that really caught her interest was the Summoning: Impure World Reincarnation Jutsu. A life would be offered to revive another person and place them under your control.

The reason for her liking towards this technique should be obvious. If anyone she loved died, she would only need to offer up one insignificant life to revive them.

Flipping through the scroll, there were two more techniques that she liked. The Sage Art: Wood Release: Several Thousand Hands Jutsu and the Flying Thunder God Jutsu.

One would only be useable if she ever learned Sage Mode and the other would need her to create a personal marking seal … which took her weeks to complete.

After completing it, she placed seals on all the things that she wanted to protect. Namely, Tsunade, Jiraiya and the clearing in the forest.

Since she really didn't like using weapons, she couldn't become a second fourth Hokage, but she kept some kunai marked with her seals on her anyway, in case she really needed them.

Sigh, if Naruto had any interest in Fuuinjutsu, he could easily become quite good at it …

She had always felt a bit of regret when she had asked whether Naruto wanted to learn Fuuinjutsu, but he always declined. He apparently just liked fighting with his fists much more.

…

Seeing a slug appear next to her in the grass, she turned to look at it.

"Uzu-sama, we want to invite you to our homeland. Our leader has decided that it is time for you to learn some of our precious techniques." The slug said.

Eh?

Uzu nodded, asking: "How long would that take?"

She didn't want to miss it when Naruto finally came back to the leaf and Pain's attack could happen anytime as well.

"As long as you take to learn our sacred techniques. We slugs have sensed that you have the aptitude to become a true sage, unlike your Mother … she, sadly, never managed to properly learn Sage Mode. Uzu-sama, we expect you to arrive at the sacred lands as soon as possible." The slug said, before vanishing in a cloud of smoke.

Uzu just sat on the grass, waiting for Naruto to enter their telepathic connection to tell him about her departure for the sacred lands of the slugs. The distance between the two of them would be too great and they would not be able to communicate while she was away.

It was only in the late evening hours that she was finally able to tell him that they would probably not be able to communicate until she returned from her trip.

He took it well although she could hear the ting of sadness in his voice, and they promised to talk again when they were available.

Sending an admittedly cheesy 'I love you' to each other, they closed the connection and she decided to speak to Tsunade before finally leaving for the land of slugs.

…

Stepping into their apartment, she sensed Tsunade and Jiraiya sitting on the couch and drinking alcohol.

She hugged her mom from behind and let her chin rest on her mother's shoulder.

"I'm leaving again Mom." Uzu said, her voice taking on a slightly pained tone.

Tsunade halted the cup in her hands and said, her voice shaking slightly: "I know. Uzu, you probably can't imagine how proud I am, hearing that you may actually learn the Sage Mode. I still remember the stories about my grandfather's Sage Mode and seeing Jiraiya use it at times, I also wanted to learn it. And, the slugs did their very best trying to teach it to me … but I ultimately wasn´t able to learn it. The slugs haven't had a sage in centuries … letting them be looked down upon by animal clans that recently had or still have sages. I believe in you … and I'll wait for you. Don't worry about us, just focus on your training. I'll keep you up to date with things regarding Pain, the Akatsuki and Naruto."

Uzu hugged her mother tightly, whispered a thank you in her ear and kissed her cheek before looking over at Jiraiya.

His eyes held a deep kindness while looking at her and Tsunade and she could swear that his gaze also held a bit of pride and expectation in it.

She let go of her Mom and said: "Goodbye Mom … Jiraiya. You should drink together more often~."

Then she did a few quick hand signs and vanished into smoke.

…

Uzu reappeared in a dense forest with tree's as smooth and white as bones.

Truly deserving of the name: Damp Bone Forest (Shikkotsu Woods).

She looked around, widening her sensing area and quickly sensing a huge, very huge presence.

Katsuyu.

Body flickering towards that presence, she soon arrived in front of a big shrine in which a gigantic slug lay.

"Child you have come." Katsuyu said.

Uzu nodded, looking at the slug in front of her.

"Katsuyu … please tell me about the Sage Mode." Uzu said, her voice quiet and soft.

Katsuyu had always treated her well and cared about her. The slug had a very gentle and warm personality.

"Mhm." The slug made an affirming sound.

"Follow me first. There's something you need to see." Katsuyu said before suddenly shrinking to only a quarter of her normal size.

She waited for Uzu to arrive next to her before the two of them slowly ventured deeper into the shrine.

The way down seemed endless, or so Uzu thought, before they arrived in a dimly lit cave whose damp air made Uzu's clothes wet and her body sweat.

Katsuyu crawled towards a particular wall that seemed to be carved full of words. It gave off a very ancient air.

Uzu waited for Katsuyu to speak.

"The Sage Mode can be achieved by taking in natural energy from the surroundings and converting it into senjutsu or sage chakra. You humans need to fuse your own chakra with natural energy and achieve perfect balance in order to create senjutsu chakra. This is an infinitely difficult process and to even start on learning it, you need to have a talent for it, which, sadly, not many have. Though, perhaps it's a good thing that we don't have too many sages around. The sheer power and strength they control is unattainable by normal shinobi. Hashirama, Tsunade's grandfather was the only slug sage that ever existed. We sense great promise in you, and we'd love for you to learn everything we know." Katsuyu said.

…

"First of all, you need to learn to open your pores to take in natural energy. To do that, you need learn not to move a single muscle in your body and to clear your mind of all distractions. You need to become one with nature. Before you manage to do this, we don't even need to talk about anything else." Katsuyu explained.

Katsuyu had brought Uzu to a very strange place. The ground was covered in slime and there were small and thin bone platform flying just above the slime.

"Sit down onto the bone-plate and assume a lotus position. The first task is to learn to remain unmoving. Having that more or less mastered, you will work on having clearing your thoughts." Katsuyu said.

I'll fall into the slime if I fail, right? Uh …

Uzu decided to change out of her good clothes and into a white robe reaching the middle of her thigh.

She jumped into the air and soon felt her naked feet touch the smooth bone platform.

Moving a bit too much, she felt herself slip a little. Thankfully she managed to regain her balance before gradually sitting down onto the bone structure and folding her legs.

She felt the bone platform slowly sink into the slime until only the barest minimum of the bone platform reached out of the slime.

A single movement and I'll be covered in slime from head to toe …

Unfortunately, that single thought caused her to clench the muscle in her arm and the bone platform slipped into the slime, causing her fall off of it and into the slime as well.

It was only minutes later that she finally managed to reach safe ground again.

This thing is more like a slime sea.

The slime was deep and it took hard work to get out of it, not to mention that she felt and smelt like …

Sighing deeply, she washed herself in an adjacent lake, conveniently close to the slime pit.

Arriving back at the place, she heard Katsuyu snicker: "Well, I'll leave you to it. I'll know when you are ready. There isn't much I'll tell you about this, you'll need to figure it out yourself. I know that you can do it!"

After that, Uzu watched as Katsuyu slowly crawled away, leaving a line of slime in her wake.

This'll be annoying …

…

Two weeks later, as Katsuyu sat in her shrine, she watched as the slug tasked with watching their youngest summoner's training crawled towards her.

"Katsuyu-sama, she has done it. Her talent is great … to think that only after two weeks, she was able to simultaneously remain unmoving and nearly achieve the state of concentration needed to gather natural energy." The small slug reported in a childish voice.

Only Hashirama-sama was able to achieve it faster than her … this is promising. We might soon have another sage … the second slug sage.

…

Another week later, Uzu finally managed to both clear her mind and remain unmoving.

She listened intently as Katsuyu explained how to take in natural energy.

Nodding, she stretched out her senses, feeling the life flowing through everything around her.

These bone trees are alive? She was bewildered, but she soon felt the life in the very air surrounding her.

I need to slowly make it flow into my body …

Achieving the perfect balance of chakra and natural energy will then form senjutsu chakra …

…

Two months later, she felt the foreign, yet familiar, energy enter into her body and flow through her pathway system. She felt warm and comfortable.

She guided it into the center of her stomach, where her chakra system's core was at and slowly let it come into contact with her chakra.

Nothing happened at first.

She watched as more natural energy slowly moved into her body and it gradually grew into a bigger ball soon rivalling the size of her chakra pool.

Instinctively feeling that it was enough, she stopped the flow of natural energy and forced equally sized parts of the two masses to split from their ball and move towards each other.

She watched patiently as the two smaller parts merged and fused together, creating something new. Something that made her feel powerful.

Even though she had closed her eyes and cut off her other senses as well, she could still feel her surroundings clearly.

Focusing on the earth around her, she easily sensed the little insects living in it.

Focusing on Katsuyu's giant form, Uzu sensed Katsuyu's joy and pride as she looked at Uzu.

This is intoxicating … this feeling of being actually connected to nature …

Uzu moved her attention back to the two swirling balls of energy in her stomach. She forced the part of her chakra that had already regenerated to split from the bigger part and fused the rest of the natural energy and the chakra, forming a giant ball of senjutsu chakra.

Upon finishing that, she slowly opened her eyes and stood up from the ground.

Looking around, she took in the much more vibrant and living scenery around her.

Ah right, what kind of physical transformation did this do to me?

She took one step and appeared at the lake. Leaning down, she inspected her face.

A fairly thick, but not too thick, black line curved around each of her lower eyelids.

(A/N: Indra?)

Her eyes took on a golden color, a thin black cross appeared in the middle of her pupils, giving her a rather inhuman look.

Other than that, touching her skin, she felt that it was much softer than before. Though, that was something that kind of came from her repeated failure in combining the two energies.

Use too little and you wouldn't achieve anything. Use too much and you would slowly transform into the animal who you trained with.

The slug summons' skin was soft and white, hence, her skin had also softened and turned whiter with repeated failure.

One could say that she had been very lucky in that regard. It could have gone much worse …

Thank god mother never managed to combine the two energies … wouldn't she look like a slug right now if she had actually failed at that part?!

She suppressed a shiver and appeared next to Katsuyu again.

"Uzu-sama, congratulations. Now that you have finally achieved the sage mode, let's start working on the slugs' senjutsu techniques that a summoner must learn." Katsuyu said.

Uzu just nodded, vowing to test her new capabilities later.

…

The Sage Mode enhanced almost everything about a shinobi.

Their bodily capabilities, their ability to sense danger and other presences, their normal jutsu.

Her Slug Sage Mode enhanced her natural healing capabilities … she could regrow limbs in mere seconds at this point. She would not need to use her Mom's healing technique that sacrificed life force. Senjutsu Chakra was all it cost to return from near death to full-strength again.

The slugs had many different techniques, but only one really caught her eye.

Sage Art: Corrosive Chakra Cloak.

Learning that art had cost her a bit of time, but compared to actually getting the Sage Mode, that was nothing.

The Sage Art would coat her body in a certain kind of corrosive chakra that would, when used in attacks or to defend, corrode anything it touched. It was invisible to non-sages and would easily be a normal shinobi's demise.

However, using that art meant that she couldn't use her wood armor … but honestly, she didn't need that wood armor anymore. The corrosive chakra cloak was much better. Any weapon that touched her body would sizzle for a bit before being completely eaten up by her cloak. Only special chakra coated weapons could hold out against her cloak.

The slugs also helped her refine her taijutsu. They didn't have their own technique, but they certainly knew how to make hers softer and perfectly make use of the acid effect of her touch.

…

I won't need the Byakugo seal in itself anymore … it's become useless to me.

Maybe I could … modify it to hold natural energy AND chakra instead? So that I'd only need to create another seal to merge it passively …

Fuuinjutsu would allow me to perfectly calculate how much natural energy and how much chakra to use. And if I can generate more Senjutsu Chakra while fighting …

…

As the months passed, Uzu received no new messages from Konoha, everything seemed fine. The last message she got was about Naruto leaving for the toad's sacred land to learn their variant of sage mode.

She felt incredibly happy that he would also finally gain this new power … it would tremendously help him in his ability to survive all the fights to come.

She hadn't heard his voice for almost a year now and she more often than not slept in his jacket that she had securely stored in her storage seal most of the time.

Sitting in her part of the shrine, she sat on her calves and looked down at the intricate seal on the bone table in front of her. She hadn't drawn it with her brush, no, she had drawn it with her own will.

It had taken her some time, but with the enhanced senses and control that the Sage Mode gave her, she was able to finally … at last … air draw her seals.

She could draw seals anywhere and without needing a brush.

Creating seals without moving her hands was a wonderful feeling and she loved it. It took great concentration, but she managed.

The intricate seal in front of her was the work she had used the past few months for to complete.

It was three seals in one and it would replace the Byakugo seal on her forehead, or rather, the Byakugo seal filled with years of chakra would be modified with the seal on the bone-table.

Carefully going through the process again, she finally closed her eyes and started controlling her senjutsu chakra to carefully inscribe the seal onto her forehead.

The diamond-shape of the Byakugo seal remained, but there appeared many intricate and curved lines around it, looking like flowers at times, before finally a circle closed around the whole seal.

The modified Byakugo seal held a nearly endless amount of chakra in its storage. If she had to guess, then Uzu would say that it held more than even Kurama had in his complete form, if one said that fusing his two halves together would mean double the amount of chakra he has right now.

Every little bit of chakra that was used from the seal, was instantly refilled from her own reserves.

The intricate lines that curved around the Byakugo seal, looking like flowers at times, formed the seal that would intake the natural energy in her surroundings.

The circle enclosing the two other seals, served both as the combining seal and as the seal containing the created senjutsu chakra.

However, this circle had a limit … her Sage Mode would never be truly infinite.

Even only activating the Sage Mode cost a little more senjutsu chakra than the tri-seal created every moment of the day.

All-in-all, however, she would still be able to keep her Sage Mode for much, much longer than without the seal … and she could recreate Senjutsu chakra in a fight without needing to meditate.

Of course, if she meditated, then she could easily increase the senjutsu chakra regeneration by multiple times.

She called this masterpiece of a seal, deserving of an equally magnificent name: Semi-Infinite Sage Seal.

She never had that great a naming sense …

…

Weeks later, during one of her meditation sessions, a small slug entered her sensing range and she opened her eyes. The passive Sage Mode allowed her to both gather more senjutsu chakra and remain alert to her surroundings.

"Uzu-sama, please properly clothe yourself, Tsunade-sama has ordered me to summon you to Konoha! Pain has already destroyed most of it and Danzo's plan has delayed the arrival of Naruto!" The slug shouted in a childish but feminine voice.

So it is time …

At last, I'll be able to see Naruto again!

She disappeared from the clearing in the bone-forest and reappeared only seconds later.

This time clothed in her usual kimono top, thigh highs and sandals. A Konoha hitai-ate was fastened to her waist, making her allegiance clear.

Additionally, she wore a white coat that reached down to her knees. On its back was the symbol of the slugs.

Katsuyu is probably already in Konoha, which is why she couldn't alert me and had to find another way …

The small slug reached up and upon touching Uzu's hand, they both vanished in a puff of smoke.

…

Uzu reappeared in a deep earthen pit.

Looking around, she realized that Konoha was destroyed.

"Seal, release." She mumbled, feeling senjutsu chakra run through her body.

Flipping through a few hand signs, she whispered again: "Sage Art: Corrosive Chakra Cloak."

Her body was instantly surrounded by a white chakra cloak that seemed to sizzle and corrode her surroundings.

Finally, she raised her head and looked at the orange haired figures in front of her.

Well, since these are puppets, it would be wise to search for the actual one as well.

She sent out her senjutsu infused senses and soon found the cave where Nagato hid.

Let's deal with these orange haired puppets first though.

…

A/N: Yeah, well, Pain's assault on Konoha. Naruto is delayed but will arrive soon.

Next is a fight scene … dunno if I'll be able to really write that scene well … but I'll try. That fight scene will be released tomorrow if it's satisfactory. I'll first rewatch Pain's assault on Konoha and then properly try to plan the battle :P

Let me know what you think of the chapter :3