"Okay fine I'm only thirteen I won't look scary for a while. When can I expect to go on missions again?"
"When I deem you capable of defending yourself adequately from those who would go after your head. Consider it extra motivation to improve quickly."
...
This feels like I'm being placed on house arrest. Whatever, I can make this work. It'll give me plenty of time to work on making myself better. Even with all of my strengths that we just talked about someone like Kakashi would easily defeat me. I'm slow and being slow will end up getting you killed. By no means do I have to be the fastest person in the world but I need to be capable of keeping up with my opponents. Lucky for me I've decided to take on a bunch of S-rank missing nin.
"Okay fine. I'll agree to that on one condition. I need something from you." I sort of demand.
"Yes? What is it?"
"Since I'm stuck down here, genjutsu turned out to be a bust and I don't get a lab yet I'm going to throw myself into seals hardcore. It's the only 'new' thing to me and it's one I'll need to advance rapidly in. I'm going to need a bunch of sealing tags. Like say... ten or twenty."
"Ten or twenty?" Orochimaru incredulously says. "I thought you would ask for more than that. Of course I can provide something so meager."
"Crates. Ten or twenty crates." I cheekily smirk at him.
His jaw drops open a little in shock. "That's... you do know that each crate has a thousand sealing tags?"
"Yep! That's why I asked for them, buy in bulk and whatnot." I casually reply.
"You want ten to twenty thousand sealing tags? What could you possibly need those for?"
"I'm going to do a lot of trial and error. A lot. It's how I plan on learning them, seeing what gets me what reaction. Sure your journal explained a lot of information about them but there's some ideas I want to test myself."
"You plan to learn by trial and error, intentionally making seals wrong to see if they have the desired effect? Seals tend to blow up if they're made incorrectly. Hypothetically even if I do get you only ten crates worth and you make fifty seals a day – which is a feat that only experts at making seals would be crazy enough to attempt – it would still take you two hundred days to create them all."
"Yeah. I can take an explosion or ten. Plus it's not like I'll be supercharging them with chakra, they'll be little booms. I doubt they'd even leave a mark. And please, do you really think that I'm going to not devote like eight hours a day to working on seals for the foreseeable future? If I only make fifty a day then I am not working hard enough. I want to be able to make basic seals in my sleep."
Orochimaru stares intently at me for a few seconds, then he makes up his mind. "Oh well, it's not like the explosions would be any more damaging than training. I will pull some out of storage for you. Don't waste them, ten crates would keep all of my other seal users satisfied for a year. You know what, feel free to waste them. At least this way I know they're going to a good purpose. I swear half of those idiots have trouble making a simple storage scroll. You learned how to do that in a day! Morons, the whole lot! I don't even know why I still devote resources to them."
"Sweet. So when can I get those?"
"I'll send someone to drop them off at your room. If you're going to use them then you get to store them."
"Cool. If you hear a lot of loud booms coming from a training field tomorrow feel free to ignore it. Oh and I finished the first journal you gave me, you wouldn't happen to have another would you? It was a huge help even though it only covered the basics."
"Yes." Orochimaru reaches into his robes and pulls out another worn yellow leather bound book. "Again, cherish this. I've spent years making each one of these."
"Do you always carry them around?" I ask as I place it next to the other one. They're both sitting snugly in my gut. There's no way anyone can steal it off of me there. Now that I'm back at Sound I should just leave them in my room. Especially when I go to training, who knows if Orochimaru will accidentally hit them or not.
"No, I had a feeling that you'd learn the art of fuinjutsu quickly and guessed that you've finished the first one." Orochimaru smiles fondly at me. "It seems I was correct, you're taking to it faster than I did. Given I had to learn from these terrible books and work out most of it myself while you have my expertly crafted notes. They certainly speed things along."
"Yes they do." I may dislike Orochimaru but the man really does know his stuff. He's meticulous, specific and clear with his notes. "Should I let you know when I finish this one?"
"Please do! I want to know how quickly you advance. The faster you learn them then the sooner I can start seeking your help for some of my more... unorthodox experiments. Another mind, especially one such as yours, would be beneficial. Although from this point on each new journal will take longer to get through. They cover more complex theories and techniques that will get harder and more advanced with each one. The days of you getting through a journal in a few days are gone, it'll take weeks now and eventually months."
He wants me to help in his lab? He actually wants me to help him with his experiments, with twisting and deforming humans in unique ways just to see what happens? That's really fucked up.
"No time to waste then!" I put on a mask of eagerness even though I want nothing more than to leave. "I've got a journal to read and some stuff to set on fire. Seals to test! Totally meant seals to test any fire is a complete accident! Definitely not done on purpose!"
Orochimaru sighs. "Just make sure to put the fires out."
...
Later That Night, Alvarcus's Room
"Too much." I place my elbows on my desk and hold my head in my hands. "Too much information. Too much seals. Too much everything. Need break."
This new journal isn't talking about any specific seals, rather this entire book is all about how to craft seal arrays. It's the bread and butter to make the more complex and impressive seals work since they all have interlocking parts. This is all about how to make that happen, how to make something happen in a specific order for instance.
And holy shit is it complex.
Why can't it be simple like just drawing an arrow to the next part? No, that would be too easy.
"Fuck it. I'm stopping for tonight. I need to test what I've covered so far to see if I grasp the concept or not anyways. It's best to catch any errors now instead of when I've finished the damn journal."
I straighten up and lean way back in my chair getting in much needed stretch. I haven't moved from this spot for hours.
"I wonder if Shirokumo found the trapdoor spiders or not? There's one way I can find out."
I fly through the necessary hand seals and place my hand on my desk. I'm too lazy to get up right now.
With a small plume of smoke my favorite white spider pops into existence. "Sup Al? How's things here?"
"Same old same old." I let out a sigh. "Working myself ragged while Orochimaru insists I do stranger and more questionable things. He's pushing me to advance in fuinjutsu quickly so I can help out with his experiments."
"Really?" Shirokumo hops off the desk and quickly scuttles up me to rest on top of my head. "That's a new one. I thought he was more of the 'I'll experiment on you' kind of guy."
"Oh he is. I've lived through three? Four? I don't even know anymore. Let's see, Jiongu, that seal, and the whole Edo Tensi thing. Three, I've lived through three."
"Dude. That's so depressing." Shirokumo pauses for a moment. "Wait doesn't he say your his child?"
"Yep." I grimly confirm. "He's experimented three separate times on his child. Imagine what he does to those he doesn't value, if they're lucky they die after the first one."
"New topic. I hate talking about him, it makes me want to ask you to leave, then you'll say no because of Sasuke and training and shit, then I'll feel bad for you and it all sucks because no matter how hard I try you're not going to leave until he's dead. So new topic!"
...
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