With furrowed brows, I navigated the tailed beast seal that put Son Goku inside his jinchūriki and concentrated on the sealed space and its 'construction', for lack of a better word. It took a long time to fully comprehend what I was looking at.
Once I figured it out, I activated the Chakra Drain technique. I had to be sure that I would suck out the chakra of the bijū directly through the seal instead of using Roshi's chakra pathways. Using the vessel's chakra pathways would obliterate them, and they would bottle-neck my efforts, wasting my time.
*Son Goku is angrily demanding that you stop,* Saiken said in my mind after I started the technique.
'You're connected to him while I'm using the chakra drain jutsu?'
*I was able to talk to him even before you placed your hand on his vessel,* the six-tails clarified.
I immediately started to frown deeply.
'Why do you think I bothered to put on a disguise? What do you think is the point of that if you just reveal my identity to them?'
*It was out of my control, Yo-san,* Saiken sullenly refuted.
'Will Son Goku and Kokuo reveal my identity to their jinchūriki?'
*Are you thinking about killing both to make sure it can't happen?*
I narrowed my eyes. That was as good as Saiken admitting that they would gladly sell me out.
'No. But I will drain them into hibernation,' I icily countered and redoubled my efforts of draining Son Goku's chakra.
*That might be a wise decision,* Saiken quietly commented as she was busy guiding the chakra I sent into my plant dimension into the seal I prepared. The Ghost Restriction Seal that I had also recently used on the demon Moryo.
As mere chakra that I drained, this seal would allow me to gather it in one place. With the practice from forming tailed beast seeds from her previous interactions with tailed beast chakra, Saiken could form those seeds from this 'loose' chakra inside the seals and allow them to grow into new incarnations of those very same beasts.
Despite her dubious loyalties in situations like this, I trusted that she would not allow the chakra to go to waste. She understood why I bothered to create these seeds and agreed with my actions, even if she didn't like my methods.
Once I was done draining well over four fifths of the four-tailed beast's chakra and got the confirmation that Son Goku was essentially in a coma, I looked at Natsuhi, the jōnin from Hoshigakure.
"Bored?"
She quickly shook her head and distracted herself by observing the destruction my two simple jutsu brought. The boil release jutsu had dissolved most of the trees and bushes in the surroundings, turning it all barren. The lava release jutsu had left jagged craters and steaming pebbles everywhere from the explosive nature of those spikes.
As my eyes followed her line of sight, I knelt down next to Han and repeated my actions from before, draining the five tails, Kokuo.
*Kokuo wishes to come to an arrangement,* Saiken suddenly said in my mind.
'What are its conditions?'
*My condition is that you drain me completely, take me out of this wretched vessel,* a new voice declared inside my head.
'And what do I gain from that?'
*Is your goal not to weaken Iwagakure? I tire of the endless conflict between you humans. You are capable of boil release. Grant me freedom and I will teach you every jutsu I know,* Kokuo proposed in a polite tone of voice.
'You misunderstand my intentions,' I retorted with a wry, forced smile.
A moment of silence later, Kokuo chimed in once more as it stated, *Drain three-fourths of my chakra and I will transfer my consciousness within that chakra. It will give the illusion of me still being inside Han while I may live on in your garden after a sufficient recovery period.*
My eyes constricted instantly. My blood first ran cold before my fury ignited it to a boiling point in the blink of an eye.
"Ah!" I heard Natsuhi shout as the air surrounding me suddenly turned incredibly hot. I felt Han's skin below me begin to blister and char before I reigned in my emotions and stopped myself from obliterating this patch of the forest and both jinchūriki.
With gritted teeth, I addressed Saiken as I asked, 'Did you just share one of my most well-guarded secrets with an enemy of mine?'
*Calm your anger, Yo-*
'No. I will not hear your excuses,' I immediately shut down and formed hand seals with my one free hand.
*Yo-san. Please understand! Kokuo is not-*
Saiken's plea was cut short as I reinforced the bijū's seal on my stomach with a sealing jutsu. Her connection to me and my plant dimension was cut, I didn't want to hear whatever she wanted to tell me.
I decided who learned my secrets, not anybody else.
*I assure you that I will transfer my consciousness to you. You have no need to fear anyone learning your secrets from my lips,* Kokuo reassured quietly. *Please don't punish Saiken too harshly. Her actions are borne from a kind heart.*
'There were only two options for you. Transferring your consciousness and coming with me or me sealing you and your jinchūriki at the bottom of the ocean where nobody would find either of you for decades or even centuries,' I declared with boundless anger coloring my expression. I also redoubled my efforts and drained Kokuo's chakra even faster.
My efforts earned me a pained yelp coming from the bijū, my draining technique at full throttle was tearing the tailed beast apart in more sense than one.
Then, I put Natsuhi in a genjutsu and entered the plant dimension together with her. There, I put the Hoshi kunoichi on a bed roll and traveled to the seal where a miniature Kokuo was waiting for me inside the sealed area.
Chakra was still densely swirling around inside the seal as the little five-tailed horse with the dolphin's head was shimmering in and out of existence. Its body seemed both corporal and gaseous. There was no Saiken here to help it form.
"Need help?" I asked with an indifferent frown.
"No, that will not be necessary," Kokuo denied with a voice that sounded both close and far away.
I watched for over an hour as the horse slowly grew in size until it stopped at around the comparable size of an actual horse. Once it did, the chakra I had drained from the jinchūriki outside was still not entirely back inside its body, but it looked stable enough.
The bijū watched me intently.
"Are you going to free me from these constraints?" Kokuo inquired after another bout of silence.
"I allowed Saiken to roam this dimension for over a decade because she saved my life. I thought the two of us could trust each other," I replied as I studied its expressions without allowing one to show on my own face.
"Saiken has done nothing to break your trust," Kokuo stated solemnly, though it appeared weakened. I didn't wonder why – I had just more or less separated the tailed beast from its jinchūriki by metaphorically sucking it through a tube ten sizes too small. "My sibling merely allowed me to tread a path to gain the freedom I so desperately craved. Saiken knows my character best and made a sound judgement call. Had you left me inside Han, I would not have told him about your dimension. Though, possibly, I would have told him about being attacked by a jinchūriki which would have led to you getting identified. You were wise to put Son Goku to sleep. He and Roshi have a slightly better relationship. I know he would have shared his findings with his jinchūriki rather quickly. Not me. Han and I tolerate each other at best."
I held up my hand in a gesture that told the bijū it should stop.
"You do not have to defend Saiken. I'll decide what to do with either of you after a night of good sleep."
With that, I sped back to where I had left Natsuhi. To my surprise, the kunoichi was already awake and staring at the meteorite I had stolen from Hoshigakure.
I chalked her waking up earlier than I suspected to her having a special chakra nature because of the stone.
"Please hand me a scroll and writing tools. I'll write down the Peacock Method and all my training insights," Natsuhi quietly requested without turning her head.
She didn't even question where she was, even though the surroundings looked completely different from where we had just been in the Land of Earth. It should have raised several impossibilities in her mind.
I once again merely shrugged and used chakra threads to get her some scrolls and pens from the nearby hut. She looked at the specially created pen by my own design for a short moment – they didn't yet exist outside my sphere of influence – and started to write down her experience.
—————
Two days later, I was back in Kiri. After cleaning up the scene of the short battle back in Iwa, I left before anybody came to investigate the disturbances.
After all, I had killed the two hidden ANBU teams keeping an eye on those two jinchūriki. Them not reporting what had happened was bound to draw attention quite quickly.
In any case, I staged some evidence to tie this battle to Konoha, scrambled Roshi's and Han's memories with more pills and subtle genjutsu, and then shot back south to get back to Kirigakure.
In my office at the academy, half a dozen of my fire clones handed me scrolls and released themselves. Even my miraculous clone technique had limits. The distance made it impossible for them to relay any kind of information to me. And since it happened in real time if I was close, there was no memory feedback when I released the clone or it was destroyed.
Naturally, I needed to know anything they did in my absence.
The noteworthy things anyway.
"How did these clones last for days?" Samui asked as she settled behind me to massage my shoulders. She looked and sounded completely fed-up but intrigued.
I quickly learned why she was so contrite. The clone I had left behind to teach taijutsu at the academy hadn't held back and gave her a thorough beating every second day.
That clone even wrote down several 'hahahaha' as if he thought he was being genuinely funny.
Dude was mental. I did not want to find out what that would mean for me.
"I sealed extra chakra into them to keep them formed. Like a battery fūinjutsu that slowly released its chakra in waves. Like an extra source of chakra that topped them off when there was a need," I explained as I continued reading.
"Could you tell me why you're pushing me to the brink each day?"
I stopped reading for a moment and gave Mabui nearby a short look. My other Kumo captive seemed interested, too, but continued sorting files about the progress reports my clones had handed her for the students.
"My pills guarantee that you will enter the kage level in no time. But having the chakra and control of a kage does not mean you are as strong as one. Whipping you into shape therefore serves more than one purpose. My students can learn from watching a fight at elite jōnin level. They can see your progress that you show even through continued failure. Well, if your will is strong enough. And, you get stronger."
Samui remained quiet for almost a minute.
Finally, she asked in as neutral a tone as possible, "And why do you want me to be stronger?"
"Obviously, I intend to be the man behind every single female kage on this planet. Mei is already Mizukage and she now has to fulfill her promise to be my wife. Tsunade is the strongest kunoichi in Konoha by far and she already carried my children. Additionally, she is already stronger than prime Sarutobi Hiruzen by a lot, there is nobody more suited than her to be the next Hokage. Then there is Pakura who is set to be the next Kazekage if nothing goes wrong in her revenge when the time is right," I described lazily as I leaned back.
"Now imagine I send you back to Kumo after the Raikage's hypothetical untimely demise. Since you'd owe your strength to me, that is four out of five great shinobi villages that are led by women, at least in part, under my influence."
Samui stilled, as did Mabui. Mabui eventually looked at me with awe and growing terror as she dropped the pen in her hand.
"You plan to be the husband of every kage behind the scenes?" The white-haired kunoichi acting as my secretary asked, her expression downright incredulous.
I shrugged a little and countered, "Beats being kage yourself and having to do all that work, no?"
"And what is your end goal?" Mabui quietly inquired after several minutes of silence.
"I'll tell you when I find out," I replied as I continued to study the scrolls in front of me.
Samui eventually asked after both women just stared at me in silence, "What are your plans for Iwa?"
I thought about a certain violet-haired kunoichi for a short moment – she could have been perfect as an usurper for the title of Tsuchikage. A kunoichi hell-bent on revenge who gets the title after killing as much as her vengeance required and then ruled Iwa with an iron fist.
Sadly, Natsuhi had taken her life after she finished transcribing all of her insights in my plant dimension. It was out of my control. In a short letter she had asked me to scatter her ashes in my 'domain'. She liked the tranquility.
Then my thoughts drifted to the Third Tsuchikage's grand-daughter. As far as I was aware, she would be the next kage of Iwa in a little over a decade.
Kurotsuchi. She was four years younger than me.
And I was determined to not be a groomer. She was a young teenager still. Additionally, the last picture I had seen of Kurotsuchi's young self left me very underwhelmed. She'd eventually grow up to have nice legs, but they all did. It came with the training to be a kunoichi.
"Still vague. My last idea struck out, but maybe that was for the best," I casually replied, not divulging any of my further plans.
Done with the scrolls from my clones, I studied the scroll Mabui had handed me when I entered my office. Eventually, Samui behind me asked, "You really want me to become the next Raikage?"
"Why? Not interested?"
"That's not why I asked," Samui sullenly rebuked as her fingers dug into my shoulders a little more forcefully.
"Then you'll be the next Raikage. Who would deny you if you're several times stronger than A?"
Mabui gave her blonde companion a look that urged her to stay silent – they would discuss this later without me present most likely.
Half an hour later, my fiancée barged into the office.
I was studying the Peacock Method that Natsuhi had left behind as the Mizukage gave Samui and Mabui a signal to leave us alone. On the way out, Mabui handed over a signed scroll with the trade deal I reached with Konoha to Mei.
"Why have you not sent this to my office?" Mei rudely asked as she sat opposite me and started to read the contract.
"The mountain does not come to the prophet," I answered distractedly.
This Peacock Method was working with similar principles compared to Fuka's Draining Kiss secret technique. At least the part where the meteorite's chakra was drawn into the body through chakra points.
Natsuhi even noted down that the first Hoshikage had suspected the 'meteorite' was crystallized chakra from an entity more powerful than the kyūbi. With narrowed eyes, I thought about the Ten-Tails. Maybe the Hoshikage wasn't wrong at all.
"This is completely in line with my demands for you," Mei eventually interjected, her eyes glued to the scroll in her hands and interrupted my musings. "I even see that you asked for direct compensation when they asked for more pills than you initially offered, just like we suspected they would do to try to divide us."
"I'm nothing if not thorough," I lazily replied.
"In that case, our wedding will be set for one month from now," Mei declared as she stood up, walked around the table and gave me a chaste kiss on the cheek.
Though, I noticed with no small amount of ire that her actions carried a great reluctance.
"Follow me," I instructed and touched her shoulder after I stood up.
One hand on her shoulder, one forming hand seals, Mei and I dissolved into two flames that I controlled to lead us outside of Kiri and to the edge of a small island far away from the one we all lived on. Once I was sure there was nobody close, I stopped the jutsu. We were on a beach looking at the open ocean.
She staggered a little, overwhelmed by the sensation of having her body turned into fire chakra. I allowed her to get her bearing as I enjoyed the summer breeze.
"Watch this," I ordered when she finally snapped out of her daze. "And yes, I could teach you that jutsu I used just now if you're nice."
I stepped forward until my ankles were in the water and gave a last look back at Mei.
Suddenly, my pupils and irises erupted in a glowing orange-red light, the sclera turned from white to shining gold, and my face gained markings in the same color as my pupils. A finger-thick line going horizontally under my eyes. Two claw marks going straight down from that line all the way to my jawline. A five-pronged flame symbol on my forehead.
Slowly, I rose from the waters and started to float in the air as I formed several hand seals.
Once I was done, I theatrically muttered, "Sage Art Sun Release: Dawn of a New Day."
And then with my clap, the world completely changed.