"If she truly awakens the Wood Style, it would be a blessing for us all!"
"She's expected to go into labor in about three months."
"When a woman gives birth, her body naturally enters a state of weakness. A Jinchuriki is no exception. At that moment, the seal holding the Nine-Tails will undoubtedly be at its weakest. Anything could happen," Hiruzen Sarutobi said, his brow furrowed with genuine worry.
His concern for Kushina Uzumaki was real; if the Nine-Tails were accidentally unleashed, it would mean utter catastrophe for the village. Although Konoha had officially prioritized this issue—drafting elaborate plans, assigning elite guards, and creating a multi-layered security net around Kushina—Hiruzen still felt a nagging sense of unease.
He wasn't a coward, but he was an old man who craved absolute, ironclad stability. To him, you could never have too many insurance policies when dealing with a catastrophe-level threat.
To suppress the power of the Nine-Tails, there were historically only three reliable methods: the sealing jutsu of the Uzumaki clan, the Wood Style of the First Hokage, and the Sharingan of the Uchiha.
While Hiruzen claimed to harbor no prejudice against the Uchiha, that was a political lie. At best, he was a broad-minded mayor who could manage a cautious trust with a select few members. Handing the Uchiha control over the Nine-Tails was out of the question. With his old teammates constantly whispering warnings in his ear, he wasn't about to risk the political fallout of trusting the police force with the village's greatest weapon.
He would never seek the power of the Sharingan for this; in fact, he'd already arranged for eyes to be kept on the Uchiha during the delivery. That left only one answer: Wood Style.
Konoha needed the power of the First Hokage—the only power capable of truly subduing a Tailed Beast.
"Hiruko, you are truly gifted. You've carved out a path entirely your own."
Hiruzen looked at Hiruko with eyes full of expectation. "Regarding the recovery of the First Hokage's true power... do you have any leads?"
"Generic Wood Style and the Wood Style of Lord Hashirama are two completely different animals. They shouldn't even be mentioned in the same breath," Hiruko said, speaking with the confidence of an expert.
Over the past six months, Konoha had relied on Hiruko's "Life One" serum to swell the ranks of its mid-level shinobi, creating a golden age of military readiness. To a ninja, sacrificing ten or twenty years of potential lifespan meant nothing; without power, you'd simply die at the hands of an enemy tomorrow. Life was binary in their world.
It was human nature to seek power, but it was also human nature to always want more. The village brass now viewed Hiruko's talent as an inexhaustible goldmine. If he could manifest Wood Style in a standard Jonin, surely he could do more.
They had reserved the best slots and resources for their own confidants, and now they wanted the pinnacle: the world-shaking power of Hashirama Senju. Even the Third Hokage felt the pull of that hunger; if he hadn't, he wouldn't have authorized the dangerous Hashirama cell research years ago. Whether for current stability or future wars, he wanted Hiruko's latest breakthroughs.
"It is possible to recreate that level of power," Hiruko said. "But it requires a candidate with a specific aptitude—someone with the Uzumaki bloodline, for instance."
Hiruko glanced toward his bedroom and continued, "If Tsunade were willing to undergo the procedure..."
If Tsunade mastered Sage Mode and combined it with Hiruko's biological augmentations, she could likely reach 50% or 60% of the First Hokage's peak. With Wood Style, she'd essentially be a "Mini-Hashirama."
Someone like Kushina, possessing the massive vitality and "Chakra-ton" reserves of the Uzumaki, could also wield Wood Style with devastating efficacy. She might even be able to siphon the Nine-Tails' chakra to fuel even grander Wood Style jutsu. She wouldn't be Hashirama, but she could certainly reach the level of Uchiha Madara with a Hashirama-face grafted onto his chest.
Hiruko had hinted as much to Minato before—that Kushina had immense potential. He mentioned Tsunade specifically because high-quality chakra could drive a positive evolution of the physical body. If one possessed high-grade Wood Style chakra and a body that could absorb massive amounts of natural energy without succumbing to cellular mutation, the genes could undergo a beneficial leap. Given that Tsunade already carried Hashirama's genetic markers, she was the prime candidate to become the next "Little Pillar."
In the original series, the Otsutsuki clan's evolution followed a similar logic: using high-density chakra to force genetic upgrades. They devoured Chakra Fruit condensed from the life force of entire planets. While this destroyed all life on a world, it elevated their existence to a higher plane. The Otsutsuki might not have the most creative combat techniques, but their fundamental level of life was something ordinary humans couldn't even fathom.
The Otsutsuki planted God Trees that grew at god-like speeds, their roots wrapping around a planet to drain every drop of life chakra. The resulting fruit was a concentrated cocktail of energy and genetic data. By consuming it, they evolved. Once a planet was sucked dry, they simply moved on to the next.
They even refined chakra into pills for efficiency, or turned their own "Guardians" into edible fruits. It was a practice that reeked of the "Devourer Faction" from high-fantasy xianxia novels—harvesting the living as medicine.
The Otsutsuki were effectively intergalactic locusts, conducting scorched-earth mining on a planetary scale. This "low-budget xianxia" reality was what Hiruko was up against.
"Minato's child?" Hiruzen blinked, startled. He took several more puffs of his pipe, his mind racing as he thought about the security of the Nine-Tails Jinchuriki. He believed...
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