Wet Rock (1)

Two months. I did it. I think.

I wasn't completely sure if the seal array was correct to the fine details. I had tested it out thoroughly without involving living entities, knowing better than pulling an Orochimaru as I had no intentions to become a murderous mad scientist with a deep interest for boys and immortality. Still, the seal looked to have been built on the right particles and to properly connect the special chakra I found on Madara's head. To confirm it was indeed this one, I compared it to what I could find in Yoshiko, then Kagami, Hiruzen and finally Reira. I alternated with the analysis, taking notes of all sorts of details the Sharingan gave me the chance to study through quick looks. Much to my relief, a quick glance wasn't as tiring as it was back when I first used it and… I got enough for the first phase to be done after a week, maybe a few more days to be completely sure of it.

A full month passed, this time experimenting on the method to apply in this circumstance. The purpose was one and the same, but there were multiple lenses to interpret this process. A pump meant to release and fill up depending on the usage of the special chakra? It had been my first try and one that failed miserably due to two critical errors: 1) The pump didn't release the necessary amount of chakra, retaining some of it inside due to the nature of the seal interacting with the complexity of a head's fullness; 2) The recovery process ended up dispersing a small amount of the special chakra, thus ending the procedure with a major loss in both delivery and return.

A bit disappointing, but not something that deterred me from going deeper on the matter. Second try saw me wasting a lot of unused eyes that I could borrow from the hospital. Due to the nature of this new experiment, I just asked for those eyes that were considered of 'low quality' due to those being retrieved by old individuals, thus prone to have some inherent eye-related illness which prevented in most cases a healthy transplant. The new attempt was tied to the eyes themselves as I wanted to try to create an inner switch that would store the chakra within the eye and thus lessen the chances of unwanted dispersion. I had to add another seal on each eye to create the effects of the sharingan, or at least something that absorbed the treated chakra and not 'corrupt' the rest of the normal eye with it.

The first trial resulted in a bitter taste hitting my mouth. And no, it wasn't just the sense of failure. It was the fact that the eyeball exploded and some of it slammed onto my lips. A horrible development, but a mistake that taught me to use a small mask to cover my whole face and my eyes from any issues as I studied this kind of volatile situation. With that sorted out, I returned my attention to the experiment and… how this ended up exploding on me. I tried to reason that I had failed to fully connect the two seals and that the release was so that the leftover chakra had caused this kind of reaction. I tried again to verify it and… I was given confirmation of it. The unusual form of chakra, which I was slowly starting to call as Chakra-U due to it being limited primarily to the Uchiha Clan, seemed to be way denser than normal chakra and, if entered the eye from within, caused a large surge of energy to push outward and create this explosive effect. I tried to change the formula to lessen the chances but… four more eyes were wasted and I ultimately labeled this a failure. Not one for science tho, as I managed to get a proper understanding on why this kind of chakra had to be monitored as to not provide an Uchiha a normal eyeball in case they lost one of their original ones, lest facing this kind of problem.

Next up was the third attempt and the one that I was confident it was going to work due to how much effort I put into it. This time I replicated a head by using an empty circular sphere that I asked the Hokage to create. He was intrigued, not as much as his brother was, but still interested to see what I was planning to do. He was a bit squeamish when I showed him the eyes I had saved up, just a dozen, and he seemed to fare just a bit better when I mentioned those were last-resort candidates for transplants from the hospital. When I was done creating the right conditions to emulate a functional head, minus blood and other elements that could be replaced to some degree without influencing the seal's effects, I was pleasantly delighted when this worked. Truth be told, this new effort was the first try except more complicated in terms of application. The pump was still there, but the Chakra-U stored inside it wasn't retrieved once the sharingan was deactivated. The energy was converted through a dual chakra-conversion seal that stood between the pump and the eye, turning the energy coming from one way through it was turned back to normal chakra. Likewise, when the pump had to fill up, another conversion seal at its entrance would turn any absorbed chakra into Chakra-U before being stored. I tried this fifteen times, all of which produced complete successes with no margin of error.

I dealt with the bulk of the issue, with one last issue remaining about the overall messy seal array: the need to get it to 'work' at my command. The first notion was to just slam a seal by the side of my head that would activate at chakra pulses from my palm. The issue being that such a method would guarantee a small and yet crucial delay to get it to work. I would need to bring my hand to the seal to start it. And if I did that in the middle of a difficult fight in which I had to have my hands moving to either attack or defend myself, I wouldn't have the chance to either activate or deactivate the Sharingan. The best solution as far as I could imagine was a switch that acted on chakra impulses coming from my head and… that opened a completely new can of worms. Up until now, I had used easy-to-detect stimuli to create the seals I made. The kind of voluntary reactions which produced chakra that would trigger the seal. Most of those were feasible through prior teaching on how to exert chakra through palms, feet, and even the heart if necessary to produce a 'calming' effect within one's overall body. But what I was looking for was a pulse coming from within the head. Which wasn't exactly simple due to how complicated moving chakra within that 'fragile' aspect of the body was. Sure, chakra normally passed within it through the array that provides energy to this part of the body, but it meant trying to manipulate a particularly important element of the whole array. If I messed it up, I was going to fear more than just a test eyeball to explode on my face. It could range from outright crippling me to actually kill my brain, both of which were superbad. Hence why, in this last bit of the process, I had to rely on a new entry to my 'think-thank'. Yamanaka Inori was the brain I needed. Matriarch of the Yamanaka Clan, proud mother of two kids that were studying at the Academy and… someone that was instantly drawn into the research I brought to her. Surprise was too little of a word to describe her inner emotion: she was gobsmacked as she went on to read the aspect of the research which I needed her to help me with. The woman studied the paper, alternating to gaze at my calm look and the fine lines making the documentation and… then accepting to take part in this last step within the process. She would be credited to produce papers about it, just that she would have to add my name with hers at the end of it.

She didn't mind. No, Inori just sought to see this aspect of Chakra explored due to her clan's personal skills and her thirst for knowledge. A fellow scientist, except this one had too many burdens between being a mother and a clan leader to evaluate a proper career in that regard. It's like an old cat, dealing with her little ones and finding food for her family… suddenly being showered with praises and games. It was kind of 'adorable' in its own twisted way, but I kept myself formal through the whole process. The blonde earnestly sought through the documents of her clan that she could show without revealing anything too important for her clan and… it was impressive. In the span of a week, I learned that the Yamanaka had a bit more than just psychology under their belt when it comes to knowledge of the mind.

They had studied the effects of chakra within one's mind and how this influenced their capacity to make decisions. And yes, there was what I was looking for in some of those papers, specifically the one detailing a rudimentary view of the chakra within the head. How it flows within it, and how it is distributed all over the section of the body. Marvelous, and it provided me with what I needed. Instead of tapping within a single of those 'nerves', I created a new pump whose purpose was to slowly charge up and then provide the necessary amount of chakra for the first pump. So, in case I had to drop out from the Sharingan early on in a fight, I could still reactivate it fast enough if I gave the second pump time to fill up. Considering the timing of a quick experiment I pulled on those specifics, the pump would be completely full after around a minute of its depletion.

With the two months' effort concluding, it was time to see if that worked. Mito spared a thorough look at my papers, asking me a few questions regarding some passages which, truth be told, were extremely complicated due to the kind of devious mindset I adopted in building them. Let's just say that my old tendency of getting too 'earnest' in writing details, the kind of stuff that I considered both a flaw and a quality, was still there and kicking whenever I was stuck in this kind of situation. Still, who could blame me? This felt like opening a pandora box of knowledge, with each discovery bringing out good and bad things at once tied to chakra itself. And as Mito took a few breaks from the papers due to their length, she still seemed convinced it would work if this work was done by two seal makers. Hence why, as I was laying down on a small table, I was being treated by a silent Mito and a Shadow clone of mine providing assistance whenever she needed it. A tedious hour later and… I was still alive and not exploding. Which was progress.

The next step, potentially the culmination of all that hard work, was getting the seal to already work regarding my still-active Sharingan. The eyesight from the right side went from red back to normal, with the stress within the eye and my reserves suddenly vanished as the Sharingan was now deactivated. It took me a moment for me to draw a breath of relief and Mito giggled at my tense expression easing down at the instantaneous peace I found at that. Sure, the drain wasn't as terrible when it was covered, but to not feel a drain altogether as just… liberating. And I could tell that this was just me regaining 'control' of my eyesight. The Sharingan was just going to drain more in the long-run with the initial cost reduced and the option to turn it on and off at command being the only things I got out of two months of intense research. That and a book of notes which could be reorganized and turned into a scientific paper that would definitely give me some more good rep in terms of medicine.

The moment I was certain the procedure had gone well, the moment I felt that I had to no longer worry about immediate aftereffects… I felt a burden out of my way. I felt this worry now turning in something of the past as I turned my attention back to my other projects. Some of which were tied to expanding the farms and including greenhouses and introducing a new form of shop in Konoha. A 'supermarket' of sorts. But before I could go back to this kind of plan, I had a few things left to try out about the Sharingan.

Specifically, my capacity to use it in combat and how much of a problem the chakra drain was to deal with while using it. I preferred to get this studied before having to fight a serious fight and… I just got the right idea on how to do it.

Now, I just needed some willing sparring buddies… or sacrifices. Whatever my giddiness allowed as the more or less moral of the two terms~.

With the Sharingan now under control, at least to an extent, I deemed it proper to give it a test via a spar to check its full potential.

For a bit, at least. And… I had a few sacrifices- I mean, willing sparring buddies for the occasion. Reira was struggling, same for Kagami. Both had their Sharingan activated, both were trying to keep up with me and… I was having a bit of a euphoric trip in facing both at once. Despite having had the sharingan for two months, this was the first serious time I used it to the extent I was. In the middle of a fight that saw no holding back and… I would be lying if I said that I wasn't struggling myself. I just didn't show it to them. In their eyes, in their memorizing gaze, I was holding them off and barely breaking a sweat because of it. In truth, the drain was still a concern that I would have to deal with eventually, but I knew that for now, even with the high potential seals had, I couldn't force much about that process. Too much manipulation of my chakra would just cause deep concerns to my growth, at best stunting it and, at worst, causing serious alterations that could damage my physique altogether in the span of a few months. So, instead of mulling over it, I just decided to grow accustomed to its limit and not overreach with my chances to get all the sweet Sharingan potential this early on. Not when the risks easily outweigh the rewards.

The spar was intense, and while for a large part of it I managed to keep control of the situation, I would soon have to concede defeat to both of them. Normally, I would have outpaced them but… I might have gone a tiny bit too far with my Sharingan and tired myself out. One of those times I got quite careless and eventually got my butt kicked. Very awkward, but still a good test of my current skills with the Sharingan. I had to keep an eye on never using it too much while I was fighting or I was really going to face a quick defeat despite the short-term boons it brought to my fighting skills. Nonetheless, I wasn't exhausted despite the strain of the spar and managed to walk my way home without suffering any troublesome aftereffect from that fight. I think I got mother stunned again, the woman noticing that I had my headband pulled up to reveal both my eyes were now normal. An explanation ensued and… she was overjoyed by the news as she could now-

"See your eyes once more."

I mean, I still had one eye still visible nonetheless but… I didn't have the heart to joke about it, now with the way she was tearing up about it. I think it was more about me being more than fine now then else. It wasn't the eyes, it was that I managed to overcome such a burden without getting beaten down about it. Could grasp it but… my brain just purged out any reason to be too impressed by it. We are in a world where there are some pseudo-deities around, I think it should be expected that, eventually even those at the bottom of the survival ladder would learn how to patch themselves up with mystical energy and crazy cheat codes like seals can be at times. Still, hugging ensued, and I ended up helping her around just so that she didn't feel too 'overjoyed' and messed things up. Then, once I was done with that, I decided to go and pick up Hanzou from school and maybe get him to the park for some fishing. I heard that Madara was planning something for dinner with her so I was to keep things stable. Nothing risky, because if I had hints of that being plotted then I would have to be quite 'displeased' with my teacher. And no, I wouldn't yell. He would be the one screaming bloody murder once I was done with him.

Still, Hanzou and then go fishing. Sounded simple, right? Well… it wasn't. There was a little 'bump' in the road caused by a small issue unfolding near the academy's entrance. Hanzou was standing his ground, three friends of his standing slightly behind him as they looked rather miffed at the older kid and his two goons looking at them. The little 'boss' looked to be particularly big-boned and yet no hints of him being Akimichi. Civilian bully? Probably. Still, I calmly moved around until I stood silently right behind the 'cool trio' and listened to what they were all saying.

"I'm telling you once again, Shimura-baka. Hands out your friends' money. I don't care who's your big brother, you are nothing but a whelp."

Oh- Oh my. The rudeness and crassness. Oh well, I feel in a good mood.

It didn't take long. I struck just twice. A rapid roundhouse kick to hit the two goons on the back of their heads and then karate-chopping the leader with a single hit. As the bullies crumbled, Hanzou looked surprised to see me. For a moment, I thought that would have been seen as a reason to be annoyed because I, the big brother, was trying to get in his way to stand up for his friends but… Hanzou surprised me. Just barely. In a way, most of what soon ensued reinforced a notion I had kind of ignored within the situation.

"Oniichan!" The boy exclaimed before bolting for a tackle-hug, which I returned happily while ruffling his hair.

Hanzou was my little cute brother that loved me to death. It's obvious he didn't care much of that. If I was there and smiling, and helping around- that's pretty much what he could ask for as a bad day going good.

"So, I see that you were having trouble with some dummies."

"Yeah but-"

"That was so cool!" One of the kids exclaimed. Little boy, black hair, small pup in his arms wagging his tail at the situation. "You're Hanzou's brother, the Black Devil of Konoha!"

Oh right, I do have a generation or two of kids worshiping me as a war hero. Really forgot about that one.

"That's about right and… I hope you're not going to keep cool about it, or I would be quite disappointed. So, you are friends of my Otouto."

They all nodded and I smiled while looking at Hanzou.

"Well, I was planning to take you out for some fishing since mom was going to be busy this evening and-"

"YAY! FISHING!" The only girl exclaimed and… I noticed she was already donning fishing gear. I blinked, noticing her pink hair, blue eyes and shining smile and-

Nope, no. I refused to even consider that possibility. I'm insane as I was, I don't need to face a Haruno that had a certain fourth-wall breaker mindset. My brain just wasn't ready for that. So, instead of indulging my curiosity in this regard, I focused on escorting the kid to our newest destination, knowing that it was going to be a fairly interesting fishing session from the kind of nutty individuals my little brother was befriending. Nothing wrong about it, after all I wasn't exactly far from that insanity myself. And as I was walking Hanzou and friends to our fishing spot, trying to answer as many questions as I could about myself, the war effort, what kind of training I did and how 'cool' is Madara from the perspective of being his only apprentice, I failed to notice that someone was staring at us from some nearby bushes.

Blue eyes glowed in intrigue as their owner spied upon the two retreating figures, grinning mirthfully as she could tell that the first step of her infiltration had gone well. It took her a while to find the right carriage to hide herself in, but she did it. It was claustrophobic at times, but she got inside the village. And with her being able to find where Danzou was while also tracking him down back to his home. She had taken time to evaluate this situation, to accept the fact she was going to find some request to get her last wish accomplished but… at least her infiltration had gone well. Or rather, she thought that it had gone well before she actually felt a kunai close to her throat and… a masked figure leaning for her to see.

"Apologies, but you will have to come to me, young lady."

Surprise appeared on her face, caught off-guard by the scene as she hadn't thought of this possibility hitting her just like that, out of nowhere. There were many thoughts that clashed all at once before the awkward situation, especially when she was put in a worse position from the way other masked ninjas emerged from the nearby trees and bushes. Way more professional-looking than anything she had seen before, and definitely tougher than the normal ninjas here in this village. No ways to bail and try to hide away from this unexpected posse and… they looked ready to jump her if she did something stupid about it. Yep, she was caught but… maybe that wasn't the worst situation possible. In fact, if she played her cards right, she would get her sweet wish fulfilled even if she was tied up and ultimately have her body fully restrained. After all, she didn't plan to kill anyone here, quite the 'opposite' in a way. And yet, as she accepted the situation and got herself roped up, taken away and brought to some interrogator, a single noise of surprise managed to get through. Quite a verbal tic, but one that she rarely had the chance to show in recent years due to her mind being far from free.

"...A!"

And that, I had yet to learn, would become a big migraine for the next few weeks… together with other issues of the kind. I just can't get a perfect peace now, can't I?!