-two days later.
Sakura, Hinata and I are looking at another failed experiment. The woman died halfway through. There are tree branches growing sporadically from her body. "this one went much farther than the others however. Sakura smiles "I knew using soldier pills to replenish their chakra would have positive effects. If implanted correctly the cells will multiply exponentially. No symptoms will show at first, only for the subject to suddenly quickly die of chakra exhaustion when their chakra runs out."
I poke the branch growing out of the eyes of the dead woman "That's neat and all, but are we going to have Hashirama's face on us or grow tree branches if the transplant is successful?"
Sakura shakes her head "That will only happen if the body rejects the cells. Taking immunosuppressants will fix that problem. So you don't have to worry, you're not going to grow a new face on your face"
Hinata looks at the branch I poked. "It is relieving to know that. As a safety precaution we should attempt to succeed at least one implant before adding them onto ourselves."
Sakura nods "Yeah. We'll need one success at the minimum before trying, ideally we would have three or more. But this is still very promising! The next test we will try to have the implant actually succeed."
I motion for Karari to bring in the next subject "Speaking of test subjects. What are we going to do with the sharingan? Hinata already has the byakugan but you don't have any dojutsu. You could swap your eyes for a pair after the Hashirama cell implant, since those would take the edge off the sharingan's strain."
Hirogi brings the new captive over to Sakura, helping her strap them in. "I've had some thoughts about that. I'll implant them and see how it goes with them. If the strain is too much I'll just swap my normal eyes back in."
I look at the test subject, an unconscious guy in his thirties. "That's a good way to go about it. Think you could implant a sharingan inside of my palm?"
Sakura pauses, then turns towards me "Why? Do you just want to see out of your palm?"
I shake my head "We don't know how to use Izanagi or Izanami yet, but if we manage to learn either of them they can prove themselves invaluable. Even having a ten second Izanami in your pocket can instantly win you an otherwise unwinnable fight. Izanami can also take out Obito, Kabuto or even Madara instantly"
Sakura goes back to tying the dude. "If we have any test subjects left over, I'll try and see what I can do."
I nod "Thanks. Do you need any help?"
She shakes her head "Not right now. I'll tell you when I do, until then just be ready. I'll need you to help me replace some of their bone marrow with the Hashirama cells"
-five days later
We have had two successes thus far. One of them is a thirtyfive year old auburn haired woman. The other success is a twentysix year old black-haired man. We gave both of them soldier pills and transferred some of our chakra to them during the implantation.
Sakura is standing next to the unconscious woman, running a diagnostic jutsu "Both of their chakra capacity has tripled and will almost certainly continue to increase. I can't measure their physical strength right now but that is almost certain to have improved significantly as well. When they wake up I'll test them some more, hopefully we got ourselves a flawless success."
I poke the guy in the head "We'll try and get another successful transplant. Afterwards I'll go first for the implant, then Hinata and Sakura will go last."
Hinata nods "I approve. It would be wise to start with whoever has the highest chakra capacity among us."
Sakura finishes running her diagnostic jutsu. "Before running more implant tests I will check these two, see if anything went wrong and if it needs fixing. If everything went well we can proceed to refine our method. If we get this to a high-enough survival rate then we can implant all of our shinobi with Hashirama cells, giving us a very large advantage over the other villages."
-two days later.
The surviving woman, Kazuki, proved herself compliant with us when she woke up from her induced coma. The man less so, with him lunging towards Sakura in a failed attempt to strangle her. After she paralyzed him I just brain-damaged him into being our friend with genjutsu.
Right now we are watching Kazuki casually bench-press a thick log. Prior to this exercise she ran with a top speed of about a hundred kilometers per hour and jumped a clean ten meters high into the air. Compared to the chakra capacity increase the physical boost is much greater.
Sakura pumps her arms excitedly "A ten-fold increase in physical capability! This is huge! And this is still the surface of what the implants are capable of! Her chakra went from three times the initial capacity to four times! At this rate her chakra will end up stopping its increase at six times the capacity and her physical strength will stop at a fourteen-fold increase!"
I smile, sharing her enthusiasm "This will prove itself the key to both our survival and our strength. No wonder everyone was so obsessed over these, they are a literal cheat-code."
Hinata nods "I actually find myself eager to undergo the transplant now. I wonder if it will synergize with the byakugan in any way."
Sakura shrugs "It probably will improve your byakugan some, just not as much as it would help the sharingan."
-five days later
We've run through all of the test subjects. Only one of the remaining subjects survived, a young boy called Chiko. None of the survivors showed any negative side-effects, so we're going to begin implanting the cells into ourselves.
I'm the first on the list to go get them, so it's not a surprise that I find myself strapped on Sakura's operating table. I look at her "Anesthesia please?"
She huffs "Pussy, a real man would stoically take the live vivisection of his bone marrow without uttering even a single word."
Thankfully she was just joking, having stuck the needle inside me while talking "Than-"
—
I wake up as I always do after anesthesia, as if I slept the best sleep of my entire life. Opening my eyes reveals that both Hinata and Sakura were sitting beside me, waiting for me to wake up.
Sakura visibly lets out a sigh of relief "Phew, I was actually somewhat worried despite knowing everything went as planned. How are you feeling?"
I get up "It honestly does not feel as different as I expected. I can tell that I am stronger and have much more chakra available, but it doesn't feel as unnatural as I expected it to be, what with suddenly going from having the chakra equivalent of twenty-something shadow clones all the way to about seventy."
Hinata smiles "That is good to hear. We were both worried you would change from the implant."
I shake my head "Nah, im still me, just a whole lot stronger now."
Sakura nods "You can't believe how happy I am that that is the case. We'll implant Hinata tomorrow with the Hashirama cells and you will do it for me after-tomorrow."
Hinata and I both nod. We spent the rest of the day resting after that, since we should be as well-rested and prepared as possible before doing the operation on the two of them.
-two days later.
I examine Sakura. She has replaced her eyes with the sharingan. "The sharingan looks pretty neat on you actually. Are you feeling any different?"
She coughs, blushing a little 'N-no. I'm feeling just fine. The sharingan is constantly draining a very small amount of chakra from me, but it's not enough to actually affect me in any way."
I nod "That's good. Do the two of you think it's a good idea to leave for The Land of Flowers tomorrow?"
Both of them nod, settling the matter. Tomorrow we are leaving for The Land of Flowers. Hopefully the daimyo will prove himself amenable to an agreement, for his own good mostly. We don't really need his approval, what's he gonna do? Embargo the village of murderous mercenaries? Worst case scenario we just take over the country as a whole instead.