Chapter 60.4- Gamer of the Desert

“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-

A/N; Keep it moving, moving, moving