And why are we using a three-point seal for this particular portion of the seal array right here?"
"Because a three-point seal allows us to add more variety into the seal design, so that we can quickly change the formula if we need to."
"Correct." My godmother affirmed my suspicions as her finger pointed to another part of the huge complicated seal array that we are looking at. "And why do we make it so that it can be passed through instead of a tangible one that blocks passage in and out of Konoha?"
"It would be too chakra costly to maintain a tangible barrier at all times."
The questions keep coming and I find myself having to answer them as quickly as possible. If I took more than five seconds to come up with an answer I will find a rolled-up piece of paper smacking the top of my head.
Ino's father, Yamanaka Inoichi, is now my psychiatrist and he had labelled me as unfit for duty after my recent mental breakdown. I am not to go for any missions or partake in any shinobi work until he has cleared me of my mental health, so now I am stuck in the village along with Hanabi and Naruto and nothing to do. There are a lot of things that I am not allowed to do when he tagged me with such a label, which makes my life pretty dull even if I know he has my best interests in mind.
My godmother decided to use this chance to introduce me to Konoha Barrier Team, the ones in charge of maintaining the invisible detection barrier surrounding Konoha. With this arrangement, I can learn something new and interesting while still heeding Inoichi's advice. After we are done here, we will be visiting the T&I next.
Kushina is an important member of the Barrier Team since she is a Seal Master, charged with the duties of maintaining and updating the complicated seal array left behind by Uzumaki Mito. My time here at the Barrier Team has been pleasant so far since the types of barrier seals I have encountered here are interesting to understand and learn. I do not have any real specialisation in the area of seals just yet, but barrier seals doesn't sound like a bad idea to venture into.
"Old perv Jiraiya actually invented a jutsu that is a smaller version of the detection barrier we use." Kushina's words caught my attention as she clapped her hands once. The slight fluctuation of chakra from her told me that she had activated the barrier jutsu around her, whatever it is. "It is called Barrier: Canopy Method Formation. Quite useful if you are trying to seek out an invisible enemy and relatively easy to learn if you have enough knowledge on the sealing arts."
"If you put in more chakra, the detection range will simply expand, right?"
"Yup." Kushina nodded as I practiced what she just taught me. The sealing array is actually just a very basic detection barrier seal. What is complicated is how the complex detection seal that initially needed an entire team to set up and maintain got simplified into a jutsu that allows it to be feasible enough to be now used by a single person on a smaller scale.
It's a stroke of genius on Jiraiya's part, really. All he did was to tweak the sealing designs on a few parts of the seal and it's done. It's something that seems really obvious in hindsight, but you probably will never notice until somebody points it out. The sealing array of Canopy Method Formation is etched and drawn somewhere on an object that you bring around with you and can be easily activated with any kind of command you specified.
For my godmother, that command is when certain specific events are met so that she wouldn't activate it by accident. Firstly, she has to clap her hand together once. Secondly, she has to be wearing her gloves where the seals are etched on while doing the first process. Thirdly, she has to let her chakra flow in a very specific way. The three specific processes done in quick succession is the trigger to activate it.
"What if we take out this part of the design instead and change it to…" I quickly copied the seal design of the Canopy Method Formation onto a blank scroll and added my own alteration. Damn it, it is taking forever to copy a single seal by hand. Something needs to be done about it, it's too slow and inefficient. Somebody should really go and invent a seal that allows one to quickly copy other seals or lines of texts from one scroll to another. Something that works like a photocopier. Things would be so much more efficient that way. Imagine the time you can cut on all the paperwork. Life would be so much simpler.
Maybe I should look into the possibility of designing such a seal in my free time.
Despite my inner grumbling, I still managed to finish copying the seal design with my own personal touch on it.
"Like this, instead of increasing the range when more chakra is added, it would make the barrier tangible instead while still keeping its detection properties. I don't know if the Canopy Method Formation would still be feasible for the ordinary shinobi because the amount of chakra now needed will probably be much higher in order to maintain its physical form, but for chakra juggernauts like you or Naruto, that wouldn't be an issue."
"Not bad." My godmother placed her hand on the top of my hand and ruffled my hair despite the scowl on my face for her doing so. I really hate it when she and my godfather do it to purposely mess my hair up. "You pass."
"I know that you are a combat shinobi, but consider joining the Barrier Team as a possible career choice, okay?" Kakoi, a member of the Detection Division of the Barrier Team, said from the side as he inspected my seal work. I've been acquainted with most of the members of the Barrier Team during my short time here since it's not everyday they will meet a possible new colleague joining their team. They are all curious about me. The Barrier Team isn't very big either. Knowledge in the sealing arts is a compulsory criteria for an applicant to even be considered for a position here, and the job here isn't exactly exciting. Not many shinobis will really want to join the Barrier Team permanently. Hence, the low application rate.
"He's good, Kushina-sama." Kotetsu laughed from his table alongside Izumo while completing some paperwork. Guess it makes sense for the eternal gate guards to be a part of the Barrier Team as well. "Been a while since we saw a genin taking an interest in us."
"And this genin can still kick your ass on any other day." Izumo jabbed at Kotetsu's ribs with his elbow, who recoiled with an audible 'oof'. "Didn't you see how he took out the invading forces with all that ice and snow?"
"Oh yeah, saved my ass back there. The snow fell just in time." Hora, a member from the Interception Division, chipped in. "Pretty yet deadly. I like it."
"Of course Haku's good. I trained him." My godmother swelled in visible pride as she made her reply. Glad to know that I am the reason she now has something to brag about.
"Please join us." Uehara, another member of the Barrier Team said as he put his palms together in a gesture of prayer. "So that there will be someone else that can help us deal with this paperwork hell."
"Dude, now he's not going to join us with what you just said. Why tell him that?"
"Honesty's a good virtue to have." Uehara said dramatically that earned him a few laughs from his colleagues. "Besides, he can already see for himself what we really do here in the Detection Division. Reports after reports. The only time our reports get interesting is that if there is something that our barriers detected and that means something really bad is going to happen in the next minute."
Everybody conveniently made a point to not mention the recent invasion. The atmosphere outside is bad enough as it is.
"That's why you join the Interception Division." Kotetsu emphasised as he said that to me. "Our routine jobs are more interesting."
"Yeah, like guarding the gates." Uehara rolled his eyes.
"We get to play cards during our free time. The Detection Division has no free time." Izumo added, ignoring the earlier jab from Uehara. "Perks of being an eternal gate guard."
"You also get to see all the pretty ladies walking in and out of the village without being viewed as a perv."
"Aye, another good perk. If you are lucky enough you can feel them while doing a body search. Imagine feeling those boobies-"
"Oi, asshats, don't teach my son the wrong things." Kushina admonished her subordinates as she painfully whacked them on the top of their heads. "The correct procedure when searching a female in this type of situation is to call for a female shinobi to do the search."
"Kushina-sama, we can always henge ourselves into-"
The whacking ensued.
"If you like something more… intellectual." Kakoi used this opportunity to sway me to his division while my godmother is busy getting her subordinates in line. "If you enjoy dealing with complex seals everyday like we do, then the Detection Division is for you. Leave the physical work to the barbarians from the Interception Division. The Detection Division is where the truly wise will be found."
I find this entire affair to be highly amusing.
"Alright, we have places to be, seals to inspect, and people to meet." Kushina dragged me along with her as we made our exit. "Send me a runner if there's an emergency. Otherwise, proceed as normal. You guys know the drill."
"Yes, Kushina-sama!"
We went to the T&I next, whose base of operations is shared with the Intelligence Division. Almost every building that houses an important division in Konoha is riddled with seals, but T&I takes it to an even higher level due to the nature of the things they deal with. There are seals to keep people out, but most of them are mainly designed to keep people in. The types of seals used to restrain highly dangerous prisoners are extremely complex too. The easiest way to destroy those seals would be to burn the seals out with a huge amount of chakra, but not everyone has that type of resource at their disposal. Such people are rare to come by.
Meeting Team 7 here was a surprise. The Team 7 with Sai in replacement of Naruto. Asuma, Kakashi, Obito, and even Guy had been sent to the frontlines. Kurenai is now in charge of coaching the entire Rookie 15, minus me, Hanabi, and Naruto due to our circumstances.
"We aren't allowed to leave the village and Kurenai-sensei wants us to learn as much as possible right now. It doesn't matter what it is as long as we learn something. Ino's father offered us the chance to come here to learn and practice advanced interrogation methods." Sasuke explained as the four of us sat in the T&I lounge while my godmother went on her routine inspection of the highly complex seals in this building whose seal designs are classified. I don't know what kind of seals those are to be considered even more important than the Detection Barrier Seal, but I know that I don't have the clearance needed to take a look at it due to how important they are to Konoha.
"Duck Ass's sharingan is a cheat." Sai accused. "He doesn't have to do anything to get people to talk. Ugly's face is also another cheat because she simply scares the information out of anyone who sees her face."
Sai ducked just right in time before Sakura's fist soared to where his head once was. I have a feeling this is a regular occurrence for them by now.
"You just suck at interrogation." Sakura growled when Sai took to hiding behind my back with that fake smile still on his face, forcing Sakura to drop her pursuit if she doesn't want to demolish the entire T&I with her monstrous strength.
"I'm not bad at interrogation. I followed every single step as stated in the book."
"And that's why you suck at it. They are merely guidelines, not ironclad rules. You have to make your own adjustments." Sasuke sighed before turning to face me. "How did you and Hanabi manage to deal with this social idiot?"
"We don't." I replied. "We either let him be or tell him to shut up."
"Girly-kun, I'm hurt."
"Shut up, Sai. It's not like you can feel that kind of emotion anyway."
"Ah, I see that my skills at lying still need some work."
"How would you go about interrogating someone though?" Sakura asked me with a curious look on her face. "By freezing them slowly?"
"That is an option." I mused. "I have another idea in mind but I never tried it out before. The most I did was to discuss the possibility of its creation with my godfather once."
"Seals?" Sasuke questioned and I nodded in response. Oh well, might as well get to working the seal array out while we are stuck waiting here. I had planned out the majority of the design of the seal array even before the Chunin Exams. Its initial design wasn't meant to be used for torture. The seal array was a personal project simply for the fun of it, I wasn't expecting it to be of any great use until I discussed my idea with my godfather during the training trip. What's left to complete the seal array is smoothening the details and that wouldn't take me long.
I took out the largest blank scroll I have with me right now and rolled it out across the table in front of us, ignoring Team 7 crowding behind me.
"Sai. Ink and brush, please."
Time to get to work.
In all his years as an interrogator, Morino Ibiki had never once seen anybody proposing the idea of torturing the information out of anyone using seals.
"Eh, why not let Haku have a go? It's not like we are running out of prisoners to use as lab rats anytime soon. The recent invasion and all that."
Ibiki eyed Kushina before turning his gaze back to the Yuki boy, the one whose deeds are currently shrouded with heated debate and controversy among the shinobi populace for turning the Hyuga girl into a jinchuriki in his desperate gamble to save her life. Ibiki has his own personal opinions about the entire affair but he is a professional shinobi first and foremost. His job is not to judge, but to get the facts right.
"Kumo or Oto?"
"Kumo." The boy answered straightaway. His choice is not surprising given what he knew about the boy's history.
Ibiki turned around and walked at the front, leading the group of five behind him. He stopped by an interrogation chamber that currently houses a captured Kumo shinobi waiting to be interrogated.
"We will be watching from the observation room."
The Yuki boy nodded once in acknowledgement before casually strolling through the door that leads to the interrogation chamber. The last time he saw anybody sporting that kind of look before going in for an interrogation, it was Orochimaru.
Should he be worried?
He turned up the volume of the speakers in the observation room a little so that he, Team 7, and Kushina can all hear clearly what is going on within the chamber while they watched the interrogation through the one-way tinted glass pane. Right in the interrogation chamber is a Kumo shinobi which they had captured prisoner during the invasion, now chained down onto a chair in the middle of the room.
"Why the fuck they send a child this time? The old man could not do it himself?"
"If it is Morino-san you are talking about, I believe he is not even in his thirties yet. He's not exactly all that old. The scars on his face can be very misleading." The Yuki boy hummed a happy tune under his breath as he slapped seals of his own design on the Kumo's shinobi forehead, torso, and limbs.
Ibiki mentally went through the information he knew about this Kumo shinobi. Prisoner #K052, Edano Kazuko. Special Jonin of Kumogakure. Specialises in the Lightning Release and Kenjutsu. A shinobi of his rank would definitely have information which will be useful to Konoha. They would send a Yamanaka to invade his mind, but manpower is currently short in every division due to preparation for a possible war. T&I doesn't have many Yamanaka clan members right now because of that. There are only so many minds the Yamanakas in the T&I can go through before they exhaust themselves. Most of the interrogations are still done in the traditional way in this trying time.
"Comfortable?" The Yuki boy questioned a little too cheerfully.
"Fuck you. You won't get anything out of me."
The Yuki boy didn't bother answering, but merely pulled over a chair for him to sit on while dragging a table and placed it in front of him. With practiced ease, he rolled open a scroll across the table with an extremely complex seal array inked on it. That seal array is something that Ibiki had never seen before.
"Kushina-sama. If I may ask, what kind of seal is that?"
"I don't know." Kushina admitted. "I can't see too clearly from here, but from first glance I think the base design is based on the basic suppression seal we have in the T&I. With heavy modification."
"Edano-san, is it?" The Yuki boy took a quick look at the clipboard in his hand to double check the prisoner's identity, the same one that Ibiki gave to the boy earlier. "Not like your name matters. You Kumo shinobis are all equally detestable. By the way, have you ever heard of computers?"
Ibiki frowned a little. The current computers Konoha has are not only highly expensive, they are all big, bulky, and come with too many wires to be efficient. They are also locked up in the most secure vault they have due to its cost and these complex machines are only taken out to be used when necessary.
The Kumo shinobi didn't bother to reply.
"Don't feel like talking? It's fine. I am also not a big fan of talking." Haku continued to hum his awfully cheery tune as he began the one-sided conversation. "Do you know how fascinating it is to control what a computer does simply by pressing a few keys and moving a mouse? Do you know what it means if I say that you are now the computer and right in front of me right now is the keyboard and mouse that controls you?"
Everyone's gaze zoomed in on the scroll laid out on the table in front of Haku.
"Let's see." Haku stroked his chin in thought, still humming that cheery tune as he slowly looked over the complex seal array inked on the scroll in front of him as if he is window shopping. "If I programmed it right, pressing the array here would mean-"
"ARRRGGGHHH!"
"Oh sorry! I'm so very sorry!" The Yuki boy said in such a sincere tone that even Ibiki would have taken it as a sincere apology if it wasn't for the scene in front of him. "I pressed the wrong one. How about this?"
Prisoner #K052 visibly relaxed after Haku pressed another area of the sealing array on the scroll in front of him.
Now that Ibiki has a clearer picture of the entire context, he realises that a big part of the complex seal has some semblance to a computer keyboard. Those must be the "buttons" that the Yuki boy will be testing out by pressing on them one by one.
There are also a lot of those buttons to press. Good luck to the Kumo prisoner.
"Wow. That's a whole different type of scary." Sakura commented, obviously realising the same things he did about the scroll's function.
"Girly-kun is going to be brutal, I just know it. Tobi-sensei would be proud."
"Shh." Sasuke shushed his teammates up. "Just keep quiet and watch."
"I've never been a fan of physical torture, you know that? Too messy. I hate washing out all the blood and I never liked scars." Haku rolled up the sleeves on his right, revealing the scars littering his arm for the prisoner to see. "See this? One of your fellow Kumo shinobi did this to me when I was only five. Thanks to him, I started to hate scars and blood. You have him to thank because that experience became an inspiration for me to design this torture method. No blood, no wound, no mess. Pretty neat, isn't it? I'm rather proud of my invention."
"You are... fucking sick in the head." Prisoner #K052 spat between heavy breaths, still recovering from whatever made him scream in pain earlier.
"Not going to deny that." The Yuki boy nodded along. "But hey, aren't you curious about what this whole sealing array can do? It took me years to come up with something workable, you know that? Someone needs to show some appreciation for the amount of effort I put into it. The first button I pressed gives you pain. The second gives you pleasure and makes you relax. Do you know how you even felt those sensations? Aren't you curious?"
Another brief period of silence continued.
"Don't know? It's fine. I don't mind explaining. I have all the time today to test this out." The Yuki boy's finger idly traced the complex seal array while saying so. "Everything a person can feel and experience is determined by the brain. Pain, pleasure, sadness, happiness, etcetera. If you want to be very technical, everything you know isn't real. Everything you know and feel is simply what your brain interprets for you. Silk feels smooth to the touch because your skin sends a signal to the brain which the brain interprets the sensation as 'smooth'. Hot water scalds your tongue because your tongue sends a signal to the brain and your brain interprets it as 'hot'. Any images we perceive with our eyes is the result of our brain interpreting the refracted light entering our eyes. Do you know that our eyes actually perceive any images as upside down when the light shines on our retina? We only see things upright as they are because our brain inverts it back for us. Do you get what I'm trying to explain?"
From the slight widening of Prisoner #K052's eyes, Ibiki knew he got it.
"What if my seals can hijack, send, and control such signals? If everything we see, hear, touch, taste, and feel are merely results of what our brain interprets, what if my seals can control what our brain is interpreting?"
The ice user slowly walked up before leaning down to talk to Prisoner #K052 in a mock whisper next to his ear.
"Your reality will change, Edano-san. With the sealing tags I placed on you and with this seal array in my hands, I can control your reality because I can now control your brain's interpretation of reality. If I say your left is right, it will be right. If I say an hour had passed even if it has only been ten minutes, you can only take my word for it because you won't be able to tell what is real anymore, because whatever I do to you is now your reality and your brain can no longer distinguish the real from the fake. From this day onwards, you will be continuously living with the thought if what you are perceiving is real after I'm done with you. You would never know when your interrogation had ended, or if it had ever ended at all because even your perception of time can no longer be trusted. None of your five senses can be trusted from this very moment. You cannot break out of it like how you did with genjutsu because it is not genjutsu. You would wish that Morino-san was your interrogator instead. You would wish that you had died the moment your village had the audacity to invade Konoha. You would wish that you had never been born as a Kumo shinobi. You would wish that you never made an enemy out of me."
The boy rose back up to his full height and waved a playful finger at Prisoner #K052.
"You think I'm here to interrogate you? No, no, that's wrong. Just between you and I, keep this a secret from Morino-san, okay? But I'm actually taking advantage of this opportunity to test out my new seal. Interrogation is something I would do only when I'm done with my experiment and collect the results I need. Now, sit back and try to relax, okay? I don't want you to feel too scared about this groundbreaking seal array I invented. I cannot have my valuable test subject ruin this rare chance for me by being too anxious and skewing the results because of that. Oh wait, I can always make your brain convince you that you are happy right now to take away that anxiousness. Silly me!"
The Yuki boy- no, Yuki Haku- cheerfully made his way back to his desk.
"You are a monster."
"You have your beloved Raikage to thank for that. He created this monster." Haku gave Prisoner #K052 a smile that reminded Ibiki too much of the deceased Snake Sanin.
A monster. That's what Yuki Haku is right now.
"Now, let's begin, shall we?"
"Haku. Are you okay?"
"Why wouldn't I be?" Haku gave Sakura a look that shows his confusion while passing over the answers of the interrogation that is written on the clipboard over to Ibiki. "Everything went well."
"What Ugly meant is that your villain act was so convincing that we all thought you went bonkers."
"That seal of yours made me fear Fuinjutsu." Sasuke deadpanned. "I'm never going to take any Fuinjutsu user lightly ever again if I see them."
"Then fear me." Haku scoffed.
Ibiki let a sadistic grin show on his face as he skimmed through the answers written on the clipboard. He had already heard most of it from the observation room while Haku was doing the interrogation, but seeing it written down on paper gives him a greater sense of satisfaction. Some parts of the information Haku grilled out of the prisoner may prove to be vital in their war preparation efforts. That complicated sealing array Haku used even had a seal that sense 'intent', making it hard for Prisoner #K052 to get out of his predicament with a lie. In some ways, that 'intent' seal is even better than the lie detector the T&I uses.
At this juncture, there's only one question that he needs to ask Haku.
"What do I need to do to convince you to give me those seals and that seal array?"
"If your Hokage allows you to use it and after I made some more adjustments. This thing is too dangerous to leave even a single copy lying around. I'm definitely inserting a self-destruct seal on it just in case."
"I can see that most of your seals are based on other seals as their template. You are only passable in creating seals from scratch, but your skills in modifying existing seals is something else. Good job!" Kushina gave her godson a heavy pat on the back that nearly sent him stumbling on his feet. "This is a piece of work! How did you even get the idea of modifying a detection seal into one that sense intent?"
"Didn't you say that the Kyubi has the ability to sense negative intent? I worked on it based on that idea." Haku said as he pocketed his seals into his weapon pouch. "Are we done here?"
"Yes, you are." Ibiki replied as he turned to make his leave after bidding the First Lady of Konoha farewell, but not before dropping his final words to Yuki Haku.
"If you ever decide to pursue a career in T&I, drop me a note and I will personally make sure that you get in. I will even push forward a promotion to get you to Special Jonin as incentive." Ibiki found himself saying as he turned around the corner.
He let out a smirk when he heard Haruno Sakura yelling "Did the Morino Ibiki just tried to recruit you?!" just one second after he disappeared within the bowels of T&I.
The rumours about the ice boy be damned. Yuki Haku is a born interrogator alright.
"Impossible."
"What's impossible?" I asked Kushina in confusion. We had just returned from the T&I and the moment she opened the door to her house, my godmother just kept muttering "impossible" over and over again.
Everything looks fine. Everything is clean and arranged neatly. What's wrong?
"NARUTO!"
"Coming!"
My self-proclaimed sister bounced down the stairs the moment Kushina hollered for her, with Naruto looking very pleased at herself for some reason.
"You did the chores."
"Uh-huh." Naruto nodded her head rapidly with her hands behind her back, looking like a child waiting for her mother to praise her for a job well done.
"You swept the floor."
"Mopped it too. Spick and span."
"You dusted the shelves."
"I made sure to leave the library alone like you said 'ttebayo! Volatile seals and all that. Ask Hanabi-chan if you don't believe me!"
"You did the laundry."
"That was the first thing I did! No accidents! The washing machine is still usable! I swear!"
"Did you cook?"
"I wanted to so that I can surprise you and tou-chan, but Hanabi-chan dragged me out of the kitchen whenever I tried to do so! She refused to teach me how to cook anything that is not instant ramen!"
"Thank the Sage she did that." Kushina heaved a sigh of relief as she rested the back of her hand on her forehead. What's going on?
"You guys are finally back." Hanabi made her appearance as she walked down the stairs, looking extremely drained. "Babysitting Naruto was a nightmare. Just ask the ANBU guards."
"Thank you so much!" Like an unstoppable whirlwind, Kushina dashed to Hanabi's side before giving her a big hug while rubbing her cheeks against Hanabi's. "Minato and I always tried to teach Naruto how to do any kind of chores without blowing the whole house up but we never succeeded! You just did us a great service!"
So that's the reason for all the "impossible" she was muttering. Just how bad Naruto is when it comes to doing basic chores around the house?
"I'm never going to do that again. You have no idea how many times I had to stop her and her clones before she destroyed something." Hanabi visibly shivered. "What possessed me to teach Naruto how to do chores? Definitely not the cat."
"You should come here more often in the future! Ah ha! That's it! I'm kidnapping you away from Hiashi! I'm sure Minato can easily forge an excuse as the Hokage to make you stay in our house permanently, something about better protecting our jinchurikis if they are both in one place-"
"Please, no." Hanabi quickly shut down that train of thought before yelling at me. "Haku! Don't just stand there and laugh at me! Get me out of here!"
"Nope." I replied immediately. "I know a losing battle when I see one. I'm not going to get involved."
"Yuki Haku!"
"Hey Haku-nii! Teach me how to cook 'ttebayo!"
It is probably not a very bright idea to agree to Naruto's request, but I'm in a very good mood today after the successful testing of my new seal array.
"Sure. As long as it is not ramen."
"YAHOOO!"
Kushina looked extremely worried as she kept looking between her daughter and her kitchen, but relented in the end.
"Any special requests?" I asked the three women in front of me.
"You are going to make me some fried dumplings. I don't care." Hanabi demanded as she crossed her arms.
"Can you think of something else that is not dumplings?"
"No." Hanabi shot back. "I don't care. I had my fill of Naruto's idiocy today and I need some comfort food. Make me some fried dumplings."
"Dumpling ramen?" Naruto asked hopefully.
"No ramen." Hanabi and I shot down that idea just as fast.
No way we are going to have ramen again.
"Disregarding the morality issue of using such a seal, it's a brilliant piece of work."
That was the first comment that came out of my godfather's mouth after he took some time to inspect my seal array. Hanabi and I are eating dinner with the Uzumaki-Namikaze family tonight. Team 8 and Team Guy are being assigned on night patrol around the village for a few days, so Hinata and Neji won't be home. Hiashi and Hizashi are involved in some confidential plans that have them coming back to the compound in the dead of the night every single day. It's been some time since either Hanabi or I had eaten a meal with them.
Thus, there was no reason to refuse a dinner invitation from my godmother. Not like we would refuse it anyway.
After trying to teach Naruto how to cook, I can see why Hanabi looked so exhausted after trying to teach her how to do basic household chores properly. I can at least get Naruto to cook rice without burning anything, which in itself is an achievement. Tonight's dinner is mainly prepared by me and Hanabi with Kushina slapping seals around the kitchen just in case a fire breaks out or worse, an explosion.
Thankfully, the seals remained unactivated. Nothing went wrong.
Kushina sent a Shadow Clone to get my godfather to come back to eat dinner after we finished cooking. He teleported back into his house soon enough although he cannot stay for long. He has to get back to work at the Hokage Tower as soon as he can. Kushina had immediately shoved the design of my newest seal array in his face and gave him a quick rundown of what it does when I first tried it out in the T&I.
"I haven't had the time to look at it yet, but I was wondering why Ibiki of all people sent me a request letter this afternoon. So this was the reason." Minato mused as he quickly popped food into his mouth while looking over my seal array with a critical eye. "Every single seal you put into the array is based on an existing seal. You did up an entirely new seal array by using existing basic seals as a template, modify them individually, and then combining the different seals together to form this seal array. It was what you were talking to me about during our training trip."
"This is the result." I admitted. "The original intent behind the conception of this complicated array is to allow a person to manually control another from afar, like how the Niidame was able to use the Edo Tensei to control reanimated corpses without exerting any effort while being physically away from the frontlines, or like how I heard Sasori of the Red Sands fought behind the safety of his puppets. I added a lot of other unrelated seals along the way when I found that such a thing is not very feasible to use in real combat, but is useful if you want to toy around with someone under your control, so I ended up making it to be used for torture."
"The whole thing just sounds wrong." Naruto said immediately. "Edo Tensei is one thing. This seal just completely robs a person's free will away."
"Which is why I told Ibiki that I'm not giving this seal array over to him until he got your father's permission." I added. "Of course I know this whole design is immoral. It was supposed to be just a personal project to push the limitations of seals. The whole point was to try and combine as many different seals as possible to form a complicated seal array. I didn't expect it to actually work."
"You tested it on a Kumo shinobi?" Hanabi asked between mouthfuls of rice.
"Yes." I told her as I helped myself to another serving of meat and put some in her bowl. "And don't speak while you are still chewing. You will choke on your food."
"Good job." Hanabi nodded in approval, totally ignoring the last part of my sentence. She put some tofu in my bowl in return. "Too bad I wasn't there to see it."
"Both of you are nuts." Naruto stated with her face scrunched up. "I get it that you two hate Kumo shinobis, but-"
"It's wrong?" I completed Naruto's sentence for her.
"Yeah! It's just wrong!"
"Do we look like we care?" Hanabi asked with a raised eyebrow. "Trust me, if you landed yourself in the hands of Kumo shinobis, they can be even crueller than Haku."
"B-But it's just wrong! And you wouldn't know for sure that's tr-"
"I was kidnapped by them, remember? I would know."
That shut Naruto up. Come to think about it, Hanabi never mentioned to anyone what she had been through before she met me. Even I don't know about it.
"I'm allowing the use of this seal for interrogation on high-priority prisoners during wartime." Minato broke the argument up as he handed my seal array back. "But I need you to add in some safeguards in case the design falls into enemies' hands. Self-destruct seals are needed, for one, so that we can destroy it when we need to. If you can find a way to add in a seal that allows us to destroy it from afar like how we do with exploding tags, even better. I myself like the idea of the seal within the array that can sense intent. See if you can isolate that part out and make some intent detection seals as a standalone seal. See if you can find a way to add that into our existing detection barrier that surrounds the village. If all goes well, I may even consider letting our shinobis use the intent detection seals on the field to better secure our encampments' perimeter."
"Got it." I cannot keep the happy tone out of my voice as I made my reply, because I finally have something interesting to do rather than idling my time away because I'm "sick". There are a lot of things that I'm not allowed to do ever since Inoichi made his diagnosis on my mental state.
At least this project will be interesting. Finally, something to do.
"Due to the possible impacts this may have on Konoha should your seal designs get stolen, I'm going to assign an ANBU guard to you while you are creating your new seals." Minato said in his Hokage voice and I know that he is not going to accept any objections on this matter. "Boar."
An ANBU with auburn coloured hair swiftly entered through the window without a sound, kneeling before my godfather. I don't think I've seen this guy before, but I may be wrong. The kind of chakra he has feels familiar.
"Haku, meet Boar. He is one of the best sensors we have in the village. Boar, your new mission is to protect Haku while he is creating his seals. If any of his seal designs gets stolen, it is your job to ensure that it never gets into the enemy's hands."
"Affirmative, Hokage-sama."
"You are dismissed."
"He is a Yamanaka, isn't he?" I asked after Boar made his exit. "I thought his kind of chakra felt familiar. It's similar to Ino."
"Since when are you an expert on differentiating people based on their chakra?" Hanabi asked in doubt. "Pretty sure you suck at that not long before."
"Since three days ago."
"I call bullshit."
"With the type of training method that I taught him to use, it's not impossible." My godfather came to my rescue as he quickly finished up his dinner. Am I now allowed to divulge the secrets of the Mindscape Training technique to Hanabi? She does know about the existence of the mindscape since she is now a jinchuriki.
"And that is?" Hanabi pressed on.
"Training in the mindscape." My godfather flashed a slightly smug grin in Hanabi's direction before standing up. He pressed a quick kiss on Kushina's forehead and fondly ruffled Naruto's hair before walking over to me and Hanabi.
"There are many things that I would like to talk to you about, but we don't have the time considering Konoha's circumstances and the nature of my new job." My godfather ruffled my hair like how he did to Naruto as he said that, a benevolent smile on his face. "But whatever it is, just know that I'm proud of you."
With that, he is gone in a yellow flash.
Dinner carried on as per usual between the four of us after Minato's departure, with Hanabi questioning Kushina what Minato meant by 'Training in the mindscape'. Even then, there's no mistaking the warm feeling in my heart.
"Just know that I'm proud of you."
And I'm happy to be able to make him proud of me too.