Chapter 72.2- One Thousand Hands

“What if I have something more engaging for you to work on?” I asked, leading her to the question I had. I’d done it. I’d all but secured the Hokage hat. That meant I had to begin working on what would come next.

“Speak, boy. I’m too old for all this leading on” She near barked. I looked at her again. Did I even want to work with someone like her? She was definitely immoral enough to not care about the inevitable need for human experimentation…a factor that had made me hesitate about involving Tsunade. I couldn’t do it on my own though. Where would I even start? Asking Orochimaru for help was just begging for trouble.

“I have a project I want your help with”

“And this project has no name or details” She asked, arched brow.

“I need to know if you’re interested.”

“And how would you know if I am interested if you don’t tell me what the project is. Are you sure your brain’s working properly?” She snarked.

“Careful now” I warned, allowing feigned anger enter my tone. A little it of ribbing would do little to annoy me. Especially considering I made a career off of doing the same to others.

“What are you going to do if I’m not? Kill me? You’d be doing me a favour. Do you know how much it hurts to get out of bed in the morning” She said, and looking at her told me she was being honest enough there. I wonder how it would feel to grow that old. I sure did wish I did, but I did also wish that I never quite got to this level of physical degradation. It would bother me more than anything else— the frailty. The pain, all of it. Even Uzumaki genes would only delay it for so long. Mito hid it well but she was clearly in pain more often than she was not. It had been getting worse since Kurama was transplanted into me, though.

“Fine fine. I need your help in seeing if it’s possible to transplant a kekkei genkai. Into either a child already born or maybe even Ito a fetus. We just need a fool-proof way of getting children to inherit certain bloodlines regardless of their base traits” I said, and she nodded almost instantly..

“So which one of the clans is on the chopping board. My bet’s on the Uchiha— smug little bastards.

“Wait— what the hell are you talking about? There aren’t any clans on the chopping board” I said. Was she actually insane?

“That’s disappointing. Surely you don’t expect them to sit idly by while you reconstructed their kekkei genkai?” Why the hell was she looking at me like I was the insane one.

“We’re obviously not going to be reconstructing any Konoha kekkei genkai. Why the hell would I go through all that trouble when I could just pay the parents to have more kids.” I said.

“So what would you have me working on?”

“I’ll take that as a yes. And the answer is Iwa bloodlines. Explosion release, lava release, and dust release eventually” I said, and I could see her beginning to salivate at the thought. Yup, I was right. This was right up her ally.

“If you were any more handsome, I’d kiss you” She said.

“I’m easily the most handsome man you’ve ever seen” She scoffed.

“Back in my day, we had real men. Men with muscles and real scars. Just look at you. Not even a whisker of facial hair. How disappointing” I resisted the urge to use a seal to shut her mouth…permanently. Barely though, just barely.