A bloddy good time

Sitting in Danzo's office was always an unpleasant experience, the fact that I was here not only to discuss my greatest failure but also when and how I would be performing a two-hour session of self-surgery meant that it was more than simply unpleasant this time.

As the silence stretched and Danzo simply examined me, I finally broke the silence with a nervous question "why exactly did you want to see me again? I mean, I can perform the, procedure, on my own, and well, we've already gone through my mistakes while in the land of water multiple times"

"Your inability to wait patiently as someone more powerful than you is thinking continues to persist no matter what, doesn't it? First, you decide to take matters into your own hands when denied immediate access to chunin-level secrets, then you decide to step in on the behalf of a much more experienced shinobi, and now you cannot wait mere seconds for me to gather my thoughts. Although I suppose that is only to be expected, after all, impatience is an aspect of poor judgment of which you have leagues" he said, each phrase a reminder of my failure.

"Oh, uh, right, I'm sorry, I should have waited" I said.

Danzo simply stared at me, waiting in silence, saying nothing for minutes on end, until eventually, an hour had passed with nothing but silence between us "good to see that you are at the very least capable of learning when given a firm order. Now, you are here for two reasons as stated in my summons, the first is to inform you of your next mission, the second is to discuss when you will perform the necessary actions for you to be even somewhat useful, understood?" he asked.

"Yes" I said, waiting for him to speak.

"We know that there will be forces planning to attack Konoha, but we do not know what forces beyond Kirigakure, nor when. We can, however, make a few loose assumptions, we cannot treat those assumptions as facts however, not like you did when you attempted to steal from Konoha, but we can use them to make a plan for a scenario where those assumptions are true. Understood?" he asked.

"Yes" I said.

"One of the assumptions we can take is that they will use the excuse of the chunin exams to imbed as many enemy shinobi inside of Konoha as possible, this is a relatively safe assumption as it gives them not only an excuse but practically forces them to place their kage and all of their most powerful guards inside of our walls, while also taking away manpower from our walls. Now, the exams are something we cannot avoid as we have no excuse for canceling the trails, and that will make us seem weak, which would only encourage any hidden village not already against us to join under Kiri's banner. They will, presumably, also enter powerful teams into the trails in order to kill as many talented young as possible" he paused, clearly waiting for me to suggest our reaction.

"So, we should only enter one or two unimportant teams for show?" I said with uncertainty.

"What an incredibly surface-level analysis of our current predicament, it is no wonder that all your choices lead to failure if this is the level of wit you hold. No, we should not set up a pathetic charade like that, as that would simply give them the perfect opportunity to kill a few average teams, and then run rampant inside of Konoha's borders. There is simply no telling what they would do if we handed them that kind of opportunity, we do not know if they have some seal to summon all their forces inside of that place given enough time, you of all people should know that. Beyond that, any shinobi with even the slightest amount of skill would be able to tell that we simply entered a team for formalities, an action which would immediately make them far warier than they already are. What we need is some measure of security, someone working to keep us aware of what happens inside the forest where the second stage of the test will take place"

"I know you told me I had potential earlier, but wouldn't it be better to give the task to someone else? I haven't exactly had a great track record when it comes to keeping my friends safe" I said.

"As any somewhat competent shinobi would know, we can only place a single chunin inside of the exams, masking their presence as simply a talented genin by surrounding them with other genin, and while you may not be the very best chunin we have available, you do have one advantage, that advantage being your fuinjutsu. Because you made the phenomenally stupid choice to focus solely on fuinjutsu, an art which, as you know, normally takes years to become even so much as adequate in, you managed to make use of your long-term mission to become very competent in that one aspect of yourself at the cost of all others. So, you are the only candidate except for Sai we have with both the right age, the right amount of chakra for you to pass as a genin, and the prerequisite skill in fuinjutsu. Combined with the fact that you have a record where Sai does not, and that Sai is far more competent in espionage than you, you become the only reasonable choice" Danzo said.

I got out of my seat and started walking to the door "great, in that case, I'll go prepare for the chunin exams, after all, there is much to be done, I have to make a bunch of arrows, my new-"

"Even if I were to ignore the fact that I have yet to dismiss you, there is still one thing we need to discuss" he said, narrowing his eye at me.

"Oh, right, the self-surgery, can't believe I forget" I said with a nervous laugh.

"I cannot believe you forgot either" Danzo said with narrowed eyes.

"So, what exactly is the plan?" I asked.

"You will attempt the procedure now, in order to ensure that you avoid faltering in your resolve, I have the room prepared right now, waiting for you to be ready. Now normally, we would have been forced to warn you beforehand so that you can avoid eating anything since the anesthesia would make you lose control of your stomach region, which could lead to you blocking throat with vomit, but we realized that we could get around that as you won't be taking any anesthesia either way, quite the marvelous little coincidence, isn't it?"

"Yes" - I stopped to swallow - "what a coincidence" I said.

Danzo stood from behind his desk, walking before me without looking back, I could have tried to escape, but the idea of disobeying Danzo terrified me, I had no idea what would happen to those around me, and it was better if I just got hurt in their stead. So, I followed him down the dim corridors until we stopped before a door, looked at it, I knew that I should continue, yet as I stood there I could not move.

"Are you going to disobey orders once again?" Danzo asked

"No, no of course not" I said, before taking a deep, shaking breath and entering the room.

Inside the door was a bright room, the bright ceiling lights reflecting off the white floors and walls, and in the center of the room stood a lone operating table, around which hung three different booms. One of the booms carried a tray full of scalpels, one held a mirror with lights to let me see inside my chest even when I lay on my operating table, and the last one held what looked like tangs, but with adjustable lengths and a locking mechanism, presumably to hold up my hollowed-out chest.

"Are you prepared to finally be useful?" Danzo asked, shaking me from my trance as I simply stared at the table.

I wanted to answer, but I knew that if I were to open my mouth I would try to get away, so I simply nodded my head and walked to the table, preparing myself for what was to come.

"Good, Magire here will do the necessary healing after each part of the procedure has been completed" Danzo said, drawing my attention to the fact that there was another person in the room with us, and that I had completely overlooked his presence when I entered, which should have been rather hard, after all, he was wearing a standard root animal mask and a surgeon's attire, creating a rather strange visage.

I went to lie down on the operation table, I put on a surgeon's mask, a hairnet and a gag, and disinfected my chest, before taking a hemostatic drug to slow blood flow, and then I grabbed a scalpel with my right hand and adjusted the mirror, so I was at a forty-five-degree angle with my left side. I drew in a deep shaking breath, and made the first insertion, a long, straight cut down the center of my sternum.

Pain flared in my chest as blood welled out quickly before clotting almost immediately, the scalpel I was using was made by me, made to induce clotting in tissues it cut. I slowly reached out with a shaking hand and grabbed another scalpel, this one looking far more like a spatula than a scalpel, and I started to drag it along the left side of my ribs and sternum, separating the muscles from my skeleton in excruciating strokes as I felt myself creating a hollow in my chest, screaming through my gag all the while, as the pain of hollowing out my own chest ripped at my mind.

I locked eyes with Danzo, my eyes pleading with him to let me stop, to let me just make a fake leg and have that be it. He only shook his head as his one cold eye narrowed into a glare, his eye like a frozen shard of the darkest ocean.

I reached up for the boom with all the tangs, dragging it down to the correct position, before taking a tang and making it grab onto the flap of flesh my left chest muscle now was and pulling the flap taut like a tent with a wrench of excruciating pain and letting me see inside myself.

I slowly grabbed the last tool of the surgery, a tool divided into three parts, a long thin shaft of steel, a ball joint and a locking mechanism to let me adjust the angle of the needle it had for a tip. I slowly started working on my sternum first, slowly carving deep grooves in my bones, carving through nerves with my thin needle in exquisite patterns of incredible complexity, each line accompanied by a burning pain as I slowly worked from my sternum to my ribs, until I had finally engraved line after line of complex script on half my sternum and the left side of my second, third and fourth rib pair.

Now it was time for the other side.

I released the tangs holding my flesh, and Magire stepped over to me and healed the muscle, before he turned the operating table 180 degrees, letting me gain a perfect copy of my setup, for the right side. I slowly moved my left arm, to be sure that he had been thorough when he healed it, as any shaking while I carved my script could be lethal.

Then I did everything one more time, I created a hollow in my own body, I carved into my own living bones, and when I finally was done, I fell into unconsciousness with one thought in my mind as I stared at the system notification before me.

[Congratulations! You have completed the seal: the seal of six wings]

[The seal of six wings

Tier: B

A seal in which the sternum and three ribs on each side are carved with seals, the seal actually functions as a combination of two seals, the one on the sternum and the one on the ribs, the sternum seal functions as a gravity seal, nullifying the user and all their items weight, while the one on the ribs creates a field of wind around the user which allows the user to get pushed in any direction by the wind. Combining into the ability of flight, with speed defendant on chakra input]

This was not worth it.