Upon hearing those words, Yuki Seisui scratched his head. It seemed he'd just opened a whole new world for Panda Wu.
Art is… Patrick Star? Deidara ran off in the middle of the night to search for the panda clan after hearing that.
While Yuki Seisui sent two shadow clones off to train in Sage Mode, his real body went looking for Panda Wu.
At that moment, Panda Wu was clutching a bamboo tube, stuffing something inside it.
"Big Bro Wu!" Seisui greeted him, leaping onto the panda's head and asking curiously, "What are you doing?"
"I found out that stuffing an entire bamboo tube full of explosive tags makes for a bigger boom," Panda Wu replied without even looking up. "So I'm stuffing it with tags."
"The explosion radius is way bigger this way."
You're Deidara in panda form, aren't you?
Seisui wanted to complain, but he supported all dreams, no matter how explosive.
If Panda Wu was on the verge of inventing a "nuke," Seisui was all for it.
With that thought, he took the scroll from his back.
Even though Panda Wu was laser-focused on packing the bamboo, part of his attention stayed on Seisui. He noticed the movement and paused.
"What's that?"
Seisui jumped down and unfurled the scroll on the ground.
Flipping to a sealing technique titled Explosive Tag Rune, he said, "This is the rune behind the explosive tag. Try engraving it directly onto the bamboo."
Panda Wu's eyes lit up. "You're the best, Seisui!"
"I was just stressing over my lack of tags."
All of Wu's explosive tags came from Seisui, who got them from Nawaki.
At this point, Nawaki had basically achieved explosive tag freedom.
The only real danger was him accidentally stepping into one of his own traps and getting blown up by the tags strapped to his body.
Seisui immediately began teaching the explosive rune to Wu.
Though it wasn't a difficult formula, it did require a foundational understanding of sealing techniques, since explosive tags were essentially derived from them.
Once Wu understood the runes, he threw himself into his research.
Watching him so enthralled, Seisui nodded in satisfaction.
Maybe I should bring him out for New Year's to set off some firecrackers…
Though with his kind of power, people might think it's a terrorist attack.
After teaching the rune, Seisui rolled up the scroll again. He decided to store it here with the panda clan.
There was no safer place.
This forest was full of pandas with super armor skills, not to mention the Panda Sage himself. Big, small, tall, short, fat, not-so-fat, pandas of all kinds lived here.
Even if the Five Kage raided the place together, they'd probably get mauled.
And besides, Seisui was the only human contracted to this place. Nowhere could be more secure.
As these thoughts passed through his mind, he made his way to the heart of the bamboo forest.
At its center stood a massive cluster of bamboo houses, that's where the pandas lived.
These weren't ordinary huts. Each stood thirty or forty meters tall.
But then again, many pandas here were over twenty meters tall themselves, so it made sense.
Among these towering structures, one house stood out as oddly mismatched.
That was Seisui's.
He sometimes stayed the night here, and having his own bamboo house made things convenient.
Inside, the place was extremely minimalistic. Just a table, two benches, and a bed. Nothing else.
He tossed the scroll onto the bed and left.
He wasn't worried about other pandas stealing it. Aside from baby pandas, none of the others could enter his house.
Just as he stepped outside, he ran into the Panda Sage, who snorted coldly and walked past him without looking back.
"…Is someone throwing a tantrum?" Seisui shook his head in mild exasperation.
What a sulky sage…
==========
Meanwhile, within the Uchiha compound, Uchiha Fugaku sat across from Uchiha Hiokazu.
"Recently, someone was kidnapped from the village," Hiokazu said evenly, lifting his teacup.
"And coincidentally, not long ago, the Uzumaki clan was wiped out."
"The person kidnapped was Uzumaki Kushina."
"Tell me, do you think there's a connection?"
Fugaku frowned deeply, falling into thought.
Hiokazu didn't rush him and calmly sipped his tea.
After a while, Fugaku replied, "There shouldn't be a direct connection."
"If someone were after something from the Uzumaki, wiping out the clan would be enough."
"There'd be no reason to come to Konoha just to kidnap a girl named Uzumaki Kushina."
Hiokazu smiled faintly, clearly pleased with the answer.
He liked testing Fugaku like this.
As the Uchiha heir, he needed to embody the clan's dignity. That meant being steady and rational.
Hiokazu was a veteran from the Warring States era. He understood the cost of war all too well.
The formation of the Hidden Villages taught him one thing clearly: if the Uchiha ever left Konoha, they'd lose everything, especially their honor.
That was why, back then, he'd refused to leave with Madara.
Peace. Honor.
"Now, tell me about that Yuki Seisui," Hiokazu said suddenly. "I asked you to probe his strength."
"What's your assessment?"
Hiokazu remained calm as ever, not even a ripple in his expression.
Fugaku blinked, then said honestly, "He's strong. Stronger than many of our elite Jonin."
Hiokazu's eyes narrowed. "Seriously?"
"Yeah." Fugaku nodded. "I saw it myself, he fought Ay from the Hidden Cloud and seriously injured him."
Hiokazu fell silent.
Then, after a pause, he burst out laughing. "That old fool Setsuna really miscalculated!"
"He thought it was a sheep, but it turned out to be a wolf!"
Looking at Fugaku, he continued, "You don't need to worry about that matter anymore."
"As long as that brat Seisui is alive, everything will be fine."
"Yes, sir," Fugaku nodded, then hesitated. "What about Uchiha Haru?"
"No need to worry," Hiokazu waved him off. "Her talent is immense. Let her do as she pleases."
Elsewhere, Uchiha Haru was training in the Body Flicker Technique in the courtyard. Uchiha Setsuna sat in the main hall, where he could see her from his seat.
Watching Haru drip with sweat, Setsuna murmured, "Forgive me, Haru…"
"I swear I'll help you achieve your dream."
Her dream was to become Hokage.
To do that, she first needed overwhelming strength.
And the Uchiha's Mangekyo Sharingan… was exactly that.
Setsuna touched the corner of his eye and muttered, "No one is worthy of being Uchiha Setsuna's granddaughter!"
Naturally, Yuki Seisui had no clue about the Uchiha clan's divided opinions about him. If he did, he'd probably tilt his head and ask, "Who the hell are you, old man?"
"Sage Mode is basically natural energy, and chakra just serves to balance it."
Seisui muttered to himself, repeating the Panda Sage's 'secret' to mastering Sage Mode.
That was it. One sentence. No other guidance.
But to Seisui, that one line felt more valuable than a thousand books.
A true teaching is a single sentence; a false one takes a library.
Sage Mode was the fusion of natural energy and chakra, transforming the latter into senjutsu chakra, enhancing the user's ninjutsu, taijutsu, and genjutsu.
But honestly, that part didn't matter much to Seisui.
He mainly trained in swordsmanship. Ninjutsu was secondary, and he didn't touch genjutsu at all.
As for sensory abilities?
As long as he could see his enemy, he could drag them into his power-space and cut them down.
What he really cared about was this version of Sage Mode, Panda Sage Mode.
It granted near invulnerability, accelerated healing, immunity to genjutsu and control techniques, boosted taijutsu, and even heightened emotions.
On top of that, he still got the standard benefits: enhanced senses and stronger ninjutsu.
Put all that together, and it meant one thing, once he entered Sage Mode, he could charge in headfirst like a berserker.
Hack and slash his way through everything.
Pure musou mode.
Seisui sat cross-legged, two shadow clones behind him refining senjutsu chakra.
As a puff of smoke rose, he recalled the clones, bringing back all the chakra they'd gathered.
"Sage Mode, Activate!"
He clapped his hands together, a white glow enveloping his body. His eyes turned golden, flickering with flowing light.
Black and white spiral-shaped markings appeared under his eyes, stretching from his temples to behind his ears and down to his shoulders.
Feeling the change inside him, Seisui muttered, "Improved… shaved off another hour this time."
"And the completion rate is better too."
He still needed two to three hours to enter Sage Mode, but that was a massive improvement from the five to six hours it used to take.
Even the markings under his eyes had shrunk, another sign of progress.
"One day, I'll clap my hands and activate Sage Mode instantly!" Seisui exited the mode, hands on hips.
"Tch," the Panda Sage snorted as he walked by. "What a weak and pathetic contractor."
He even shook his head before walking away.
Watching him leave, Seisui's mouth twitched. I only teased you a little at lunch…
Do you really have to hold a grudge like this?
What a petty panda…
Thinking that, Seisui glanced at the sky. "Time to head back."
"Tomorrow's the final round of the Chunin Exams."
If he beat everyone else, he could finally rest for three years.
That thought alone made him excited.
Three years of lying flat and training in peace, what a dream.
With that, Seisui left the panda clan's forest and reappeared in his own room.
"Time for dinner," he said, rubbing his stomach.
He wasn't really hungry, training Sage Mode meant eating a lot of bamboo shoots anyway, but it was mealtime. Skipping food just felt wrong.
=============
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