Inside the library, Tachibana sat upside down on his chair while reading the Transformation Jutsu Scroll.
'So the transformation jutsu uses chakra to morph appearances?'
'And it uses the tenketsu in the body to manipulate the shape and colour the chakra takes after it is used.'
Tachibana stood up with the scroll open on his chair and looked at the exact hand seals he had to make and how he had to morph the chakra in his body to activate the jutsu.
'I don't have enough chakra currently, but since I've rested all this while, I think I can squeeze out a little bit from my body without burdening it.'
He closed his eyes to focus and direct a bit of his spirituality towards the tenketsu around his navel and mixed it with a bit of physical energy to generate a little chakra.
Tachibana felt the familiar cooling sensation as he circulated the chakra around his circulatory system. And after a few minutes of moving his chakra around his body, he was ready to try out the new jutsu.
Tachibana read the scroll and stood at ease before performing the first seal, 'Dog!'. Holding the hand seal, Tachibana slowly moved his chakra around his body exactly as the scroll described, at least he tried since immediately after he was-
'That's surprising.'
He felt a little strain in his chakra if he chose the wrong path to move his chakra in while holding the 'Dog' symbol. So Tachibana immediately became distracted and started performing all the twelve basic hand signs that he remembered being used in the show.
'As expected!'
'The hand signs help in choosing the path that the chakra should travel in by tightening the other paths in the body.'
'With just twelve hand signs there are probably millions or even billions of combinations out there.'
'Which only increases if one can count all the ways these can be combined to form jutsus.'
Tachibana shuddered at Orochimaru's thirst and desire for knowledge of all ninjutsu in the world that have been made and will ever be made in the future.
'Wouldn't he never be able to get them all?'
Tachibana shook his head and went back to studying his current jutsu, but in even less time he got distracted by fanciful thoughts about chakra control.
'So better chakra control is related to reducing hand seals?'
'Is that how Hashirama and Madara activated their jutsus with a single hand seal or sometimes even none?'
'But then how do you train your chakra control to that extent?'
'The leaf concentration, tree walking and water walking exercises?'
'But I doubt they'd make you as good as Hashirama or Madara, after all there are several shinobi who train using these methods.'
'Perhaps the medic-nin? I remember Tsunade having the best chakra control out of the Sanin.'
'Forget it, I'll ask Maburoshi tomorrow.'
Refocusing on the scroll open in front of him, Tachibana began performing the jutsus once again from the beginning.
He formed the 'Dog!' seal and moved his chakra through a few Tenketsu.
He did the same with the 'Boar!' hand seal.
And then with the 'Ram!' hand seal.
There was a sudden puff of smoke beside Tachibana as he felt all the chakra he was controlling suddenly be sucked out of him and travel into the puff of smoke.
The smoke cleared and under Tachibana's shocked gaze was a disabled half-dead disfigured clone. But-
'This! I did it!'
'I made a clone!'
'Why does this excite me even more than throwing paper cards as sharp as a shuriken!?'
Tachibana spent a little more time with the jutsu and extracted every last bit of chakra his body could provide him with.
Although none of his attempts were better than the first attempt, Tachibana was satisfied with merely a puff of smoke and the disfigured clone.
'After all, Rome wasn't built in a day, and neither was Konoha probably…'
'And that was about seventeen attempts?'
'Is that great?'
'I mean Naruto could make thousands of solid clones…'
Back in his chair, Tachibana's eyes landed on the shelf filled to the brim with books beside him.
'Why don't I pick out a book for the night?'
Tachibana stood up from the chair and dragged himself to the shelf to pick out a book but stopped and returned to his chair. He closed his eyes and performed a quick dream divination.
"The book which will help me the most."
Muttering the statement seven times, Tachibana used cogitation to enter a state of deep sleep before his astral body escaped into the spirit world.
A swirl of colours that almost blended together passed by Tachibana's eyes but they soon separated and formed a scene he recognised.
'It's the room I'm currently in.'
'Is there a good book here?'
Tachibana looked on and soon a red-haired woman dressed in an elaborate red yukata walked into view.
'Who's she?'
'Red hair, so an Uzumaki?'
She walked to the bookshelf but slowly altered her direction to reach the wooden pillar supporting the shelf.
She soon placed her hand on the pillar and waited for a few seconds. A sealing array expanded on the pillar momentarily before vanishing like it was never there. But simultaneously, the shelf sunk into the wall.
The dream ended there and Tachibana awoke from his short dream with a slight shock.
'A secret room?'
Tachibana moved to the shelf, placed his hand on the same spot Mito had and tried pushing on it.
'Nothing happened?'
'Did they perhaps remove the room or someth-'
'Oh! It might be chakra!'
Tachibana created a little bit of chakra from the strength he had left and poured it into the wooden pillar.
Nothing happened for a second but for a moment, complex black sealing diagrams flooded the pillar before vanishing like they never existed.
The bookshelf sank into the wall just like it had in the dream, and Tachibana moved to push it further.
The shelf sank into the wall further and opened like a door, leading Tachibana to the secret room he'd been so excited about.
Tachibana stepped into the room and saw the large shelves that extended from wall to wall, but the light in the library showed him how all of it was now covered under a layer of dust as if time had left this area undisturbed for a decade.
Moving closer to the nearest shelf, Tachibana read the title of the first book he could find, 'A Beginners Guide To Sealing.'.
Tachibana pulled out the book and cracked its spine carefully.
There were several lines of text, diagrams and hieroglyphs, but the interesting part was that it was all handwritten.
'This is Mito's legacy?'
'Whose house was this originally that Mito had a secret library of her books constructed here? Did she live in this house too? But it's so small…'
Tachibana was overjoyed.
But he kept his excitement in control so that no one outside would become suspicious of his actions. He slipped the book into his dress and walked back out of the secret room after closing it such that there were no traces of the room left to be noticed.
'I guess I'm also learning sealing now.'
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A/N : I plan to make Tachibana capable of making a seal that can act as a calculator for his jutsus.
For example, he could use a fireball jutsu but the seal would take over control and cause it to follow its target, or he could use a jutsu that required intense calculations without straining his mind in the Shippuden arc. Is that alright?
I'm not sure yet if he'll share this with anyone else, I'm leaning towards he should not.
Thank you for reading.