Chapter 510: Quasi-Kage Deidara
After Kawakita left, Ishiro turned his gaze to Deidara.
Deidara was still immersed in the battle between Ishiro and Kawakita. He had involuntarily put himself in their shoes and had come to a conclusion: his explosive clay was nothing in front of them.
The only thing worth mentioning, perhaps, was that it could fly. If he took to the air beforehand, Kawakita probably couldn't do anything to him. But if he didn't, he might not even get the chance. He had seen Kawakita's closing speed. He felt that before he could even take out his clay, Kawakita would already be in front of him.
Ishiro interrupted his thoughts. "Deidara, I heard you not only developed Explosion Release but also created a remotely controlled explosive clay?"
Deidara nodded. "Yes, this is it."
He took out some clay, chewed on it for a few moments, and then spat out a large pile of white substance, which quickly transformed into a giant white bird.
At this time, Deidara had not yet modified his body like in the original story. To use his explosive clay, he still had to use his mouth.
"This bird can fly, and it can explode." With that, he jumped onto its back. The bird flapped its wings a few times and took off.
Ishiro also used his Light/Heavy Boulder Technique and flew up with him.
Then, the large white bird spat out a much smaller bird.
After the small bird had flown some distance away, Deidara formed a one-handed seal, gave a loud cry, and the small bird exploded.
BOOM! A huge fireball erupted in the air.
Ishiro nodded at Deidara. "Not bad, not bad. The power is good. And the method of use is more diverse than normal ninjutsu. It's a very good technique. Let's try it again."
Deidara was puzzled but still had the large bird spit out another small one.
This time, after the small bird flew out, Ishiro took out a senbon and casually threw it. The next moment, it hit the bird.
"Can you still detonate it?" Ishiro asked.
Deidara was stunned. He tried, then said in surprise, "What's going on? It's not working."
"The senbon I just threw contained Lightning Release chakra," Ishiro explained. "I've used it to destroy the earth nature in your clay. That little bird is useless now."
Deidara was dejected. He could easily tell that the chakra required to make that little bird was dozens of times more than the chakra in Ishiro's senbon. Such a trade-off was a complete failure.
Seeing that his purpose of suppressing his ego was achieved, Ishiro said, "However, your explosive clay has indeed brought out the immense power of Explosion Release to its fullest. Right now, it's more suitable for dealing with a large army. If you want to use it in a duel between masters, you still need to develop a series of tactics."
Deidara nodded, his voice weak. "I understand."
Seeing this, Ishiro felt that Deidara's state was not what he had expected. He was suddenly curious about how Deidara now perceived his own talent.
So, he also landed on the clay bird, stood next to Deidara, and asked, "Deidara, what do you think of your talent?"
Deidara didn't understand his purpose. He thought for a moment. "Among my peers, I am the strongest. But in the village, there are many who are stronger than me, or about the same. Of the ones younger than me, there's Chūkō, Haku, Riori, Kurotsuchi, and Neji. Kurotsuchi said that Karin Uzumaki, Haruno Sakura, Kurama Yakumo, and Shion are also very talented. If you count you, Lord Tsuchikage, and the seniors Kawakita and Shinya, I'm just an ordinary ninja in the village, I guess."
Ishiro was stunned. Have Ōnoki and I suppressed him too much over the years? Have we destroyed his confidence?
Looking at his expression, Ishiro felt this couldn't continue. It had to be corrected.
He thought for a moment. "Do you know why I'm talking to you alone?"
Deidara shook his head. He was Ōnoki's disciple and didn't have much contact with Ishiro. They weren't master and apprentice, nor were they close acquaintances. He guessed Ishiro was just concerned about a junior as the Tsuchikage, but he didn't say it out loud.
"Because in my heart," Ishiro said, "you are the most talented genius in the village."
Deidara looked at him in surprise.
Because it was the truth, Ishiro's words were very frank, completely from the heart.
"Just look at those geniuses younger than you. Think about it, how many of them were originally from our village?"
Deidara was taken aback. He thought about it. It was true.
Chūkō, Haku, Neji, Riori, Karin, Sakura, Yakumo, and Shion were all outsiders. Only Kurotsuchi was a "red-rooted, seedling-red" third-generation Kage's descendant.
"Those people were hand-picked by me," Ishiro continued. "Some I even risked my life to snatch from other villages. Of all the children in the Uchiha, Hyuga, and Mizunashi clans, why did I only choose those three? I didn't choose randomly. I had gathered intelligence. I felt they were exceptionally talented, which is why I brought them back. As for me, Kawakita, and Shinya, although we've reached the Kage level, our talent is far inferior to yours. You can go and ask about our grades in the academy. Only Ikura and Kitsuchi's talent is decent, but also far from yours."
Deidara knew this. No one in Iwagakure didn't know that none of Ishiro's disciples were talented.
"You are the most talented of all the people born and raised in this village," Ishiro said. "Both I and your teacher, the Third, have been suppressing you because your personality is too flighty. We were afraid you would go down the wrong path. Otherwise, with your talent, if we had focused on guiding your training and the development of your Kekkei Genkai, you would have created this explosive clay long ago."
Deidara was stunned. He had always felt that Ōnoki treated him very well, seeing him as his successor. But listening to Ishiro's analysis, it seemed to be right. At the beginning, Ōnoki hadn't taught him much, instead always talking about the almost useless Will of Stone. Although he had taught him everything he was supposed to, it had wasted a lot of his time.
Ishiro knew what he was thinking. "Are you thinking that Lord Third didn't teach you ninjutsu and just kept talking about the useless Will of Stone? You're still young. Although you've matured a lot, compared to your rapid increase in strength, it's still not enough. You can't yet understand what the Will of Stone is. When you've experienced life and death, when you truly think about how to encourage your juniors, then you will understand. Only the Will of Stone is the truth. Only it can guide the next generation onto the correct path. We hope you will walk the right path. We don't want you to reach the level of jonin, elite jonin, or even Kage before your mind can handle your power."
He patted Deidara's shoulder. "I can't ask you not to blame us, but we absolutely do not want you to lose confidence because we suppressed you. You should know, I always use encouragement when I teach my disciples. You are the only one I was afraid would grow too fast, so I chose to suppress you."
Hearing this, Deidara's eyes suddenly lit up. A thing called confidence immediately filled his chest.
Ishiro continued, "Be confident. You are a genius I recognize. Even if you doubt yourself, don't doubt my judgment!"
This was the greatest praise Deidara had ever heard.
The whole village—no, the whole world—knew about Ishiro's teaching ability. Not only had he guided Kawakita to the Kage level, but with Shinya becoming a Kage and Sōkai awakening his Mangekyo, his reputation as a master teacher had grown even more. Not to mention the rumor that even the Mizukage had been guided by him.
Deidara suddenly felt as if there was a breath stuck in his throat that he had to let out.
He urged the clay bird beneath his feet to flap its wings hard, and it immediately carried them higher into the sky.
Then, facing the high-altitude winds, he shouted, "I AM A GENIUS! THE NUMBER ONE GENIUS RECOGNIZED BY THE TSUCHIKAGE!"
Ishiro turned his head and smiled faintly. This Deidara was a bit more like the eccentric one from the original story.
But he was smiling not because of the resemblance, but because at this moment, Deidara was undergoing a transformation.
Standing next to him, facing the fierce winds, Ishiro's mood was even better than Deidara's. He murmured to himself: Another one!
He and Ōnoki had made a mistake before. They had suppressed Deidara too much. Or rather, Ishiro had been too influenced by the original story. He had not considered that in this life, Deidara's talent was not that outstanding in Iwagakure, and he had misjudged his mentality.
Deidara had an unrestrained personality. His natural state in the original story had been conducive to his growth. But Ishiro had intentionally or unintentionally suppressed this. Especially after he brought one genius after another to the village, Deidara's pride as the top student was almost gone.
Fortunately, Ishiro had discovered his mistake in time and corrected it.
He had just said so many deceptive words to rebuild Deidara's confidence and let him recover some of his true nature.
Sure enough, when Deidara cast off the restraints on his mind, his true nature was instantly released. He had directly stepped into the Quasi-Kage level.
The two of them let the great white bird fly for a long time before Deidara came back to his senses.
Ishiro looked at him. "Congratulations. You've finally become a Quasi-Kage."
Deidara grinned. "Lord Tsuchikage, don't worry. I won't be naughty anymore."
Ishiro was surprised, not understanding why he had suddenly said that.
Deidara continued, "I know now. You and the old man were afraid I would go down the wrong path, so you've been correcting my mindset. I understand now. I know what I should do in the future."
Ishiro was curious but didn't interrupt, quietly listening. He was thinking that if this guy had any more strange ideas, he would have to correct them.
Deidara didn't have such complex thoughts. He said loudly, "From now on, I will train hard! I will become the Fifth Tsuchikage! I can't lose to Riori, Sōkai, Neji, Haku, Sakura, Yakumo, or Shion!"
Ishiro: ...
Feeling he had overthought things, he tapped Deidara on the head. "If you want to be Tsuchikage, training alone is not enough. You have to learn to be independent. When we get back, I'll arrange a position for you. You can familiarize yourself with government affairs first. The Tsuchikage has to deal with many of them every day."
Deidara immediately protested. "You're lying, Lord Tsuchikage! The old man said you're the most relaxed Tsuchikage in history! You push all your work onto the advisory council!"
Ishiro: ...
Why does Ōnoki tell him everything?
Embarrassed and angry, he gave Deidara several more raps on the head. "Nonsense! I just dealt with a whole desk of documents today!"
Deidara immediately covered his head. "It must be because you let it pile up! The old man told me that long ago! And I don't want a desk job! I'm a Quasi-Kage! I want to do S-rank missions!"
"Don't even think about it!" Ishiro said, tapping him on the head. "From today on, you will do a desk job."
Deidara didn't know that no matter how much he protested, it was useless. It was a tradition in Iwagakure for new Quasi-Kage to be confined to the village.
After bringing him back, Ishiro did as he said and immediately arranged a desk job for him as Kawakita's deputy. The two were about the same age, and Kawakita had only recently taken over village affairs. They should have a lot to talk about and could discuss things with each other.
Kawakita was stunned. He had only been separated from them for a short while, and Deidara was already a Quasi-Kage?
He suddenly felt like he was about to be surpassed by his junior. Have I not been working hard enough? Have I been slacking off since becoming a Kage?
After dumping Deidara on Kawakita, Ishiro went to see Yoshimura Kazumasa, Takumi, Chiga, Riori, and the others, to get a detailed understanding of their training or research progress.
Yoshimura's research on hand seals for the ninken had borne fruit. He had used the cats' special flexibility to research a series of methods for forming seals by moving their bodies. Although the sealing speed was slow, there was now, in theory, no obstacle for Iwa's ninken to cast ninjutsu.
What surprised him even more was that Yoshimura was now researching a method of forming seals through taijutsu.
"Teacher Ishiro," he had said, "this is an idea I had while researching the hand seals for the cats. If one can, while performing taijutsu, achieve the purpose of forming seals through specific movements, then it should be possible to successfully cast a ninjutsu."
Ishiro marveled at the strange thought processes of these researchers and affirmed his idea.
Next was Takumi.
His progress pleased Ishiro. He asked him in detail about the thought process behind developing his movement technique, what problems he had encountered, and how he had solved them. Then, he combined it with his Universal Pull and tried out various movements.
Sure enough, although he was not yet familiar with the technique, with the help of his gravitational skill, his agility surprised even himself.
"It seems I'll have to practice more with Kawakita. This movement technique is too useful," he thought, satisfied.
After leaving Takumi, he went to the Anbu, because Chiga was there.
Her training required blood, which was provided by the Anbu. Sometimes they would find animal blood for her, sometimes the blood of criminals, and sometimes even the blood of the Anbu members themselves.
"Teacher Ishiro, I succeeded!" Chiga said excitedly.
Ishiro still didn't know what she had researched. But he didn't need to ask.
She had sorted through the benefits she had gained from the Cult of Jashin and had finally completed a mission he had once given her.
She could now: ingest the blood of several different people from the same clan and then sense the location of every member of that clan.
Hearing this, Ishiro nearly jumped for joy.
"Is there a distance limit?" he asked quickly.
Chiga thought for a moment. "I don't think so. I've tested it with several clans in the village. I can directly sense that some of their members are on duty in that region in the southwest of the Land of Fire."
Ishiro was delighted. That was an exclave of the Land of Earth, originally ceded by the Land of Fire to the Land of Wind, which he had later taken. It was almost halfway across the continent from Iwagakure.
"Excellent! Excellent! You wait here. I'm going to get something." He rushed out of the Anbu.
He found the ninja Orochimaru had left in the village. "Contact Orochimaru. Give him this."
The man took the scroll and immediately transmitted it.
A short while later, Orochimaru sent back a dozen or so bottles via summoning jutsu.
Ishiro took them and went directly back to the Anbu.
He found Chiga, and the two of them went to the biological research lab.
He gave the bottles to a researcher. "Cultivate these hematopoietic stem cells. Give Chiga a fresh blood sample every ten days. Can you do it?"
The researcher didn't ask why. He looked at the bottles and nodded. "Just cultivating blood from stem cells? No problem."
He immediately went to cultivate it. A short while later, he returned with a dozen samples.
Ishiro motioned for Chiga to drink them.
After she did, she said after a long while, "I sense them. There are many people. One is in our village. Most of them are very far away. This direction is... the Land of Fire?"
Ishiro nodded. "Very good. This is the blood of the Hyuga clan. I traded for it from Orochimaru. The one in the village is Neji Hyuga. Sense them. See if you can sense any other Hyuga who are not in the Land of Fire."
Chiga nodded and carefully distinguished, then shook her head. "No. Besides Neji, all the other Hyuga are in the Land of Fire."
Ishiro was a little disappointed. "Is that so? A pity. Your perception can be maintained for ten days, right? From now on, drink the Hyuga's blood every ten days and monitor them for me. If any of them appear outside the Land of Fire, inform me immediately."
Chiga didn't understand why he was so interested in the Hyuga. Didn't they all have the Caged Bird Seal? They weren't strong. What was the point of watching them?
Ishiro didn't explain. "Can you sense other clans at the same time?"
She nodded. "I can. I can sense many individuals at once, but for an entire clan, I can only sense two. I've tried. Any more and it gets chaotic."
Very good, Ishiro thought. Hehe, Shisui Uchiha, I hope Fugaku's Mangekyo is in your eye socket.
But before that, there was something else to do. "Come on. Let's go to the Uzumaki clan."
He took Chiga to the Uzumaki's residential area.
They didn't all live together, but because they had all moved to the village at the same time, their homes were not far apart. They all lived in this area, but there were also many non-Uzumaki civilians and ninja here.
The arrival of the Tsuchikage caused a bit of a stir among them.
After coming to Iwagakure, the Uzumaki had not adopted a strategy of huddling together for warmth. Although they had contact with each other, they had not formed a faction. Their choice had been to directly integrate into the village. The marriage between Ikura and Yumi Uzumaki had been an attempt at this.
Ishiro sat in the home of Yumi's parents, looking at the other Uzumaki clansmen in the living room.
He smiled. "Don't be nervous. I've come today with good news. But this matter cannot be made public for now. Please choose a few trusted clansmen to stay. The rest can go."
Hearing this, they all sighed in relief. After a brief discussion, ten ninja remained, including Yumi's parents. Riori was also among them.
Her strength was top-tier in the entire Uzumaki clan, and as the Tsuchikage's disciple, her status should have been very high. But her personality was too immature, and most of the time, others did not see her as a strong person.
Ishiro smiled and pointed to Chiga. "This is my disciple, Chiga. She has an ability to sense a person's location through their blood. Now, her ability has been upgraded. As long as she ingests the blood of several people from the same clan, she can sense the location of the entire clan. So, the first I thought of was you, the Uzumaki clan."
Hearing this, everyone except Riori immediately stood up.
One of them asked with surprise, "You mean, Chiga can find our clansmen who are scattered throughout the shinobi world?"
Ishiro nodded. "This ability has been tested. It can indeed do this. This is the main purpose of my visit today."
After receiving his confirmation, they, without a second word, began to let their own blood.
Chiga quickly said, "Just a little is enough! A few drops from each person is enough!"
She was scared. From the looks of it, she thought they were each going to give her a bowl.
She swallowed the blood of the nine people, and they all looked at her expectantly.
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