Chapter 60- Gamer of the Desert (Complete)

XXXXXX- THREE YEARS LATER

It was a masterpiece, I decided. A bloody masterpiece. The final perfected seal. I knew it was perfect because on completing it, I received a notice from the system that Fuinjutsu had finally reached level 100. Staring at it with the eyes of a fuinjutsu god told me there was nothing to be improved in it. It would work and do everything I intended. Precisely and perfectly. I looked out of the window, enjoying the view of a new and improved Suna. Once fuinjutsu got into the nineties, I started being able to do whatever I really wanted with the skill.

That was why there was now a giant park near the middle of the village. I didn’t need to rely one enclosed buildings as a crutch for climate altering seal matrixes anymore. I could just create barriers and work my magic from within there. It was all better, much better than it had ever been. Children in the last five years would have no memory of a different Suna. They got the privilege of growing up in paradise. A paradise that was so perfect that it was easily the top tourist destination in the elemental nations. Kabuto’s rail project meant that we had civilians and even a few genin from the other villages coming here on a regular basis to holiday or even just for a weekend getaway.

There was a ringing from my desk, and I felt my body freeze almost instantly. It flew like it took me an eternity to find my shirt and put it on. That alarm meant only one thing. I disappeared in a flash to the penthouse floor of the new and improved hospital.

“Chiyo” I said with a rising panic as I noted that there were doctors scrambling around her bedside

“Her condition is deteriorating rapidly, Kazekage-sama” The man that I grabbed by his coat to ask what the hell was going on said to me as he ran around to place a drip into her hand and begin refilling whatever the medication was. I stepped closer to her rasping form and noticed the way her eyes came into focus as she felt my chakra wrap itself around her.

“I told you no” She said, her voice stronger than it had been in months.

“You did” I agreed with her.

“I’m not healing you. Just surpassing the pain and giving you some extra vitality so you’re not so weak. Don’t worry, it’s all temporary” I told her with some consternation in my voice. I could not put words to the feeling that ran through me as I watched her, the woman who had been so much to me in this world. Her wrinkles were more pronounced than they’d ever been. Those scars that marked the passage of time over her face and drew lines across her visage that were once testaments to her fight against time now stood as monuments to her defeat.

“It’s not your fault” She said.

“I know. You’re the one refusing treatment here”

“Everyone I knew is dead, Gaara. My brother is gone. I am all the remains of my era, and I am so so tired.” She said. I nodded at the words even as I wanted to disagree. She was right. She had fought for longer than anyone else in the village. Asking her for any more would have been ridiculous, but still this felt like a betrayal.

“I am so incredibly proud of you. This village. This paradise on earth you’ve built is beautiful, and thank you for letting me watch it happen over the years as greenery overtook the brown that scared my eyes as a child” Her voice sounded so old in that moment. It sounded distant even as I heard it come from a woman seated next to me.

“Thank you for being the Kazekage the village needed. Thank you for leading her well. Thank you for choosing peace when war was all you had known. Thank you for being my Grandson…” The last one made my eyes snap up to hers even as she began to close them. I placed her hand in mine as I felt a sorrow that was beyond words come over me as I felt her life force begin to leave her. She was dying, and I could fix it but there was nothing I could do about it.

“She’s gone, Kazekage-sama” One of the doctors said like I could not feel it for myself. Like I did not feel the moment her body lost its battle with time and gave away to a dozen minor illnesses that I could have healed with a snap of my fingers and as much effort as it took me to blink myself awake.

I put her hand down as I dissapeared from the room into my office. The Second Hokage’s flying Raijin had been one of the last pieces of fuinjutsu to yield itself to my attentions as I grew from low 90s to the peak of Fuinjutsu mastery. I stared at the seal again and closed my eyes for a second as I realised that Chiyo would not be here to help with this next transplant. She’d marvelled at the Rinnegan just as much as I did when I first took Nagato’s head out of the inventory and freed the mythical eyes from them. Since then we’d both studied the physical and metaphysical properties of the eye until we understood every bit of how it worked- or every bit that yielded itself to direct observation of this form.

Neither of us had been comfortable enough to consider cutting the eyes open, but my Wet tinkeringskill had given me quite a bit to work with. That, combined with a total mastery of fuinjutsu had led to the creation of this seal. I called it the Zentai seal. It was to be everything. It would do everything that I’d previously needed multiple seals to do.

Everything would come together in one. One seal. Whole. Complete. All.

“Are you ready?” My clone asked. I just shrugged at his words as we began to walk down the hallway. I’d created a special training chamber for myself a year ago. Kamui gave me access to only the kamui dimension, but consistent practice with it gave me the building blocks I’d used in creating my own dimension. I wasn’t sure if I truly created it or just discovered it but the subspace played according to all he rules I’d set when drawing up the seals. We approached the door and pushed it open as one before dropping in. It was grassland. Just flat, plain grass stretching across to infinity. Not a true infinity, but a functional one for all intents and purposes. I’d had a clone fly in one direction as far as he could, and it took him hours to figure out that he was being looped back to where he came from upon reaching some arbitrary point. Still, it was a large pocket dimension, and more importantly a closed one.

If it wasn’t when first created it, then it was now. A seal matrix woven into the very earth prevented any space-time ninjutsu from accessing this place apart from the single portal that I’d created at first. This was my place.

“Do it now” I told my clone as I turned around and took a seat on the stone tablet that a different clone had left behind as a joke. For a joke, it was an unusually well made one. With the right combination of seals, he’d made the tablet chakra inert. Nothing. No chakra could affect it. He’d carved the whole thing with sand and then etched the seals into the surface. Even a tailed beast bomb did nothing to the stone as it stood there, completely unscathed and inert.

That made it the perfect reptacle for complex seals. My clone walked forward and placed a hand on my stomach. I gasped as I felt his grip on the seal that kept Shukaku within me. “Fuin: Kai”

Ichibi no Shukaku. The one tailed demon racoon. A creature made of sand and spotted with curse marks along its frame. Angry, spiteful, mad, pained, haunted, and for some reason right now, still. I’d removed the genjutsu placed on him, expecting him to lash out and come at me. Expecting to have to pacify him in one way or another. Instead, he just stared down at me. For some reason, that made me even more wary.

“Ichibi?” I asked hesitantly. I knew the tailed beasts were sentient and had some manner off intelligence. I wasn’t sold on the human-like aspect, but I could appreciate that they were intelligent in their own way. Just not as intelligent as we were. Human-like intellect with that sort of power? There was no reason why they should not have ruled the shinobi world as gods.

“Call me Shukaku, Gaara or should I say *xxxxx*”

My heart stopped. It actually did. For a second as I felt myself be seized by panic. I’d not heard that name in over a decade. Not since I was born in this world. Not since I’d cast it aside to take up the mantle of Gaara of the Desert and abandon whatever connected me to that past life.

“How do you know that name?” My clone found its voice first, but I agreed with the question.

“I have been inside you for so long, have I not?”

“But our minds were separate” I instantly disagreed.

“For a time, yes. The seal the old woman placed to seal me in you had no such feature but your Gamer’s mind kept us separate. And then you turned it off to place me under genjutsu. Since then, while you kept me supressed, I had full access to your mind and thoughts.” He said in a gravely voice that somehow still managed to be more light than I’d expected from a being of his size and appearance.

“And so you’re less angry and generally insane because of that?” I flashed a glare at my clone as he asked the question. Sure, I had little doubts that we were strong enough to handle the weakest of the tailed beasts but that was still no excuse to piss off someone who wasn’t even interested in fighting us. It reminded me too much of my younger self, when I was keen to solve every problem with my fists and chakra, and never even thinking of alternatives. There was no reason for me to let Rasa die so early. He could have acted as a shield to allow me to grow in my strength. It was not inevitable that he would have invaded Konoha. He’d only done it in canon because of our nation’s situation. I could have talked him out of the entire meeting with Orochimaru if I’d just given him my ideas for a better Suna ahead of time. So many things could have been prevented in the first place.

“Yes. I have spent years in your head going through your thoughts, and living your life. In some ways, I am as much you as you are.”

“Huh?”

“Yup”

“Yup?” I echoed with a feeling of trepidation building in my chest.

“Indeed. At the speed of thought, I have experienced every memory you have within you- from both lives- more times than I can even count. At first, it was to hurt you. As insane as I was, I somehow thought viewing your memories would give me some kind of o way to hurt you. I raged against them. Screamed, howled, cried, whatever I did- none of it worked. Slowly, I began to feel myself becoming more and more sane with time. And then, I gave up on trying to hurt you. It wasn’t working. I kept watching the memories on loop though. At that point, it was simply an excuse to avoid boredom. Boredom is the real killer at the end of the day. Over even more time, it stopped being boring and things began to stick. I experienced every memory from your point of view, not as an unbiased observer, so bits and pieces of your personality started to leak in. With millions of repetitions, there was nothing I could do to resist the gradual creep turning into an avalanche as your personality subborned and overcame what remained of mine.” He said, but he didn’t sound angry. He sounded pleased, instead.

“And you’re not angry at me for that?”

“Of course not. Maybe I would have been if you released me year or so ago, but I’ve gotten to experience every second of your past, and now even your present from your point of view. I’ve seen you at your worst, and at your best. I’ve felt your pain, and your sorrow, and your triumphs. All that you are, I am. Or all that you were, rather, since you’ve released me.”

“Alright then. This is going to take some getting used to, but just to clarify; Are you going to blow me up when my clone here begins to start applying the seal on me?” I asked.

“Well, that would be a bit counterintuitive. There’s about a quarter of my chakra left in you to keep you running so why would I kill you and lose that. I’ll wait for you to be done with your seal so you can give me what is mine and I can be on my merry way.”

“And you’re sure you won’t be coming after me for anything? Revenge for the genjutsu, maybe?”

“Maybe I would have in a different world, but no. All I ask is that you release me to wander the earth but build me a suitable nest close to the village. I have a taste for civilisation and I hope you won’t deny me that”

“And what’s in it for us?” Another sharp look was sent to my clone at that. For sone reason, since I’d perfected the actual shadow clone jars that meant we weren’t all connected to the same mind, they’d begun to act up and show their independence more and more.

“When I take the one-fourth of my chakra left in you, I’ll leave behind a bit of it and bless you with my curse seal ability.”

“I could just take it” I replied.

“Well, I know you won’t. That’s not the kind of person you are. Not anymore, at least.”

I took a good long look at the tailed beast, and in a decision that was probably going to count as one of the more reckless things I;’d ever done in this life, I chose to say ‘fuck it’ and let it happen.

“You know what? Deal.” I said.

“Deal” The tailed beast with a lot more sentience than I’d foreseen said.

“Now back off so we can do this” He nodded, and began to look around the plains, making it clear that he wasn’t intending on disturbing us.

I laid on the tablet again, and my clone began to draw the seal down. Fuinjutsu was many things in one. An art, a science, and both at the same time. But if there was one thing it took above all else, it was symbolism. This seal took that to the maximum. In this world, the most powerful numbers on a symbolic level were 3, 5, and 8. 3 for the basic states of matter. 5 nations, 5 elements, 5 shinobi village, there were so many things built up on the number that it was no wonder it was the more powerful between the first two. 8 was special because it was 5 and 3 put together. So what did I do with my seal? I leaned fully into it.

I had 8 sets of 5 seals drawn onto 3 sets of 8 to form the matrix, and then added another 5 sets of 3 to pull everything together. I couldn’t just make everything eights because while the seal would be powerful, it would not flow. Flow was necessary. Flow, control, and finesse. This was going to be a very delicate seal because of all the moving parts that would be involved and the delicate nature of the seal in and of itself already. After all, nature chakra was not something to be played with, and this seal was going to give me the power to make it my bitch.

After an hour of drawing, we finally got to the next stage of the plan, and I resisted the urge to shiver as my clone held my eyelids open and prepared to take out my right eye. It was time to finally implant Nagato’s rinnegan. Only one eye, however. All my studying and tests had shown that there was no real advantage to integrating both eyes, and since the rinnegan wasn’t the flat upgrade to the sharingan that some would have expected since both eyes fulfilled different roles, I was going to be keeping my sharingan in my left eye. Basically, I’d be pulling an Obito from the beginning of the war arc. Except I didn’t have hashirama cells to handle the chakra drain for me. Instead, I was going to have to get a bit creative. Hence the seal-

It was a masterpiece. Complete and total. I forced myself to think about it instead of the pain I felt as my clone removed my eye and began the delicate surgery to replace it. That scene where Madara just took Kakashi’s eye and plugged it in with no hesitation was complete bul;lshit. Sure, this world didn’t have things like organ rejection for doujutsu as they seemed to be compatible with every eye or eye socket regardless of things like shape and size that should have been limiting factors, but they weren’t still as easy to plug in as Madara had depicted. Either the scene was bs or the body of the ten tails jinvchuriki was just made different.

Either way, the surgery was necessary for me. I would have one rinnegan and one sharingan in each eye. Both eyes were going to drain tons of chakra even in their base passive states, but that was a sacrifice I would have to make- psyche. That was where the seal came. Multiple parts of the seal were dedicated to passively pulling in nature chakra with no limitation. That meant that after this, my body was basically always going to be in Sage Mode, and my eyes would not drain a single drop of my chakra.

Jugo’s kekkei genkai made with fuinjutsu, essentially. Except for the fact that it was better. Better how? Filtration. I didn’t have access to Hugo’s cells- not really. But sending shinobi into the Land of Rice had yielded fruits eventually. We had quite a few test subjects with Orochimartu’s cursed seals on them. Breaking down the cursed seal and how it worked told me all I needed to know about Hugo’s clan kekkei genkai. It took nature chakra in with no filtration system. Orochimaru’s cursed seals had filtration systems but they were so basic and barebones that they might as well have never even been there in the first place.

Mine had a more robust system. Not just aimed at filtering the volatility that came in with the chakra, but the Chakra itself. Dedicating a team of some of the smartest strategists in the village to come up with ways to defeat an imaginary opponent who had my seal at their disposal had given me a lot of possible situations to safeguard against. One of which was chakra poisoning. One of them had come up with the idea of designing a poison aimed at nature chakra itself that would poison the person without them even noticing. It was purely theoretical as nothing of the sortie had ever even been attempted before, but it was a scary enough theory that I had to prepare for it.

The gathering and filtration of nature energy was an important part of the seal, but it wasn’t even close to the full thing. I had another matrix dedicated to automating the mixture of my chakra and the nature energy. This was the most complex. There was a reason why sage mode required one to sit still and focus for minutes on end to gather enough energy to trigger the transformation. It was because sussing out the precise ratio of human chakra to nature energy to form Senjutsu Chakra was a task and a half on its own. And then there was the actual mixing process. I designed a seal that would essentially act like a computer program. It would know exactly how much chakra I had at all times, and know exactly how much nature energy my seal was letting in. And then it would decide how much of it to mix to form senjutsu chakra and run this process multiple times in a second. It was easily the most energy intensive and complicated part of the seal.

Apart from that, there was also the part of the seal that functioned like my old blessed seal of Theotita. This seal was special in how finicky it could be so I had been forced to remove that seal to place this one. It was why I’d unsealed Shukaku in the first place. It would direct chakra to both my eyes to keep them powered and then heal them at a consistent rate. That would ensure I could use them both at full power while still avoiding the blindness of the mangekyou.

And then there was the final bit of the seal that pushed the senjutsu chakra directly into my chakra system and kept me in sage mode consistently. Altogether, it was perfect. That was why I called it the complete seal. It would not permit any other seals to be placed on my person, and that was a worthwhile sacrifice.

It was perfect. My clone coughed to signify that he was done with the painting of the seal and the required transplants, and I braced myself for what was coming.

He slammed his hand down right on my stomach and screamed, “Fuin”

I felt the ink all across my body light up at once as I got the influx of memories from the clone dispelling.

I had no idea how long I slept for, but I did know that when I woke up, Shukaku was curled in on himself sleeping. I took a deep breath in and then one out before I opened my new right eye. The rinnegan was everything I expected. I couldn’t see things with the same clarity as the sharingan, but that only applied to things not made of chakra. A being like Shukaku had all that he was laid bare before the Sage’s eyes. The eyes that revealed all things indeed, I thought to myself with a smile. Pushing off from the stone tablet was easier than expected as I felt myself sail through the air for a few seconds before I instinctively stopped my motion with a gesture. I was floating. No sand. No weight manipulation. Just me looking at the draw of gravity an saying ‘nope’.

This was going to be so fucking awesome, I decided. Turning towards the exit, I felt the temptation to step out to check how things were going. But then another part of me just wanted to stay here and test out my new eye and body. I felt my arm turn into an actual chakra canon with only a quick application of my will, and it was clear which part would win.

A/N; Worth it?