Whoever came up with this Lightning Style nintaijutsu deserved a medal.
Hiruzen Sarutobi couldn't help the honest admiration that rose in his chest.
It was useful. Ridiculously so.
The technique went by plenty of names, Lightning Style Armor, Lightning Cloak…
But according to the memories pulled from Blue B's corpse, the Hidden Cloud Village's official term for it was Lightning Style Armour.
Getting started wasn't particularly hard. The problem was everything after.
To truly make it smooth, to make it instinct, to keep it active in combat as a normal state, the difficulty didn't climb, it exploded. The curve shot up like it was going vertical.
"Using Lightning Style Chakra to activate the body… stimulating nerve response speed with electricity…"
"And the lightning wrapped around the body also strengthens the flesh over time. It's armor, hard and dense."
"This is a technique that drags out the limits of the human body."
A smile tugged at Hiruzen's mouth.
This Lightning Style Armour felt like it had been built for him.
These past few months running Konoha, he couldn't say he'd achieved some earthshaking miracle, but the village was better than it had been. Stronger. More stable. More alive.
His body didn't look different on the surface, but Hiruzen had felt something shifting, something quiet and steady.
It was like his talent had sunk into the village itself.
As Konoha's pulse grew stronger, his own ceiling, that old invisible wall, was being pushed upward by the same rhythm.
Not by much, not yet.
But it was real. Solid. The kind of progress you could put a hand on.
Like a seed buried deep in the soil, slowly drinking in scraps of life, spreading its first roots in silence.
All he needed to do now was turn that new ceiling into actual strength, step by step, earned and proven.
Training still meant grinding. There was no cheating that.
But in this brutal shinobi world, having a ceiling you could reach if you worked hard enough was something most people would spend their whole lives begging for.
Balancing the village's growth, keeping everything stable, and still refusing to let his own strength slip…
Life was busy.
Life was fun.
And honestly, being able to leap across rooftops and twist the laws of the world with Chakra never stopped being interesting.
Authority. Military. Economy. Education. Diplomacy.
Hiruzen turned those five blocks over in his head.
Authority and military spoke for themselves. The economy was already being prepared.
As for diplomacy, the Hokage was still waiting for the Hidden Cloud's rabid accusations to come snapping at Konoha's throat. That would be a chance to score clean, public wins.
"Education," Hiruzen murmured, thinking of the reports Sakumo Hatake had been filing lately, "that needs attention."
Some of the more elite Academy students were already outgrowing the standard curriculum.
Maybe a monthly "Hokage visits the classroom" program?
At that moment, the shinobi invited to the meeting began arriving one after another.
"You're here early, Sensei?" Orochimaru asked, a little surprised.
He'd specifically padded his timing, thinking he'd be ahead of everyone.
"You're early enough, Orochimaru." Hiruzen chuckled. "Meeting in the Hokage Tower is just me thinking in a different room."
"Do what you need to do. Don't turn this into empty ritual. Just be on time."
Danzo Shimura's brow twitched.
He'd been thinking, just moments ago, whether he should come even earlier next time. Earlier than Hiruzen.
Damn it. The monkey sounded like he'd read his mind.
No. Coincidence. It had to be.
Danzo sat down with a stiff face and stewed in silence.
Hiruzen glanced at the clock, saw everyone had arrived, and cleared his throat.
"The operation against the Hidden Cloud Jinchuriki went extremely well."
"This meeting is to discuss the intelligence extracted from the enemy Jinchuriki and Head Ninja corpses. Take a look."
A short briefing, copied by the Administrative Department, sat in front of each person.
The report made one thing clear.
One major reason the Hidden Cloud was rushing to build up their Jinchuriki was because their old rival, Iwagakure, was suspected of gaining preliminary control over their Four-Tails and Five-Tails.
After a moment, Orochimaru spoke, voice low.
"We need to put contingency plans for tailed beasts and Jinchuriki on the table. Immediately."
The pressure in the room dropped.
Talking about enemy tailed beasts was one thing.
But inside Konoha, tailed beasts were a sensitive subject.
Konoha's Nine-Tails Jinchuriki was Mito Uzumaki.
The First Hokage's widow. Once a princess of the Uzumaki Clan. A master of sealing. A woman who could keep the Nine-Tails under control.
But she was old.
And the ugly question always lurked behind that fact.
Could Konoha strip the Nine-Tails early, for the sake of future war?
That meant death.
If anyone even tried, Hiruzen's authority and reputation would collapse in the village at a terrifying speed.
If the Hokage could be that ruthless to the First Hokage's widow, what did that say about how he'd treat everyone else?
On this issue, even Danzo, who built his entire worldview on strength and sacrifice, kept his mouth shut.
Hiruzen spoke evenly, as if the weight didn't touch him.
"Given the current state of the shinobi world, if a Third Shinobi World War breaks out, tailed beasts and Jinchuriki will absolutely be involved on a wide scale."
"We can't gamble on the enemy's research stalling. At the Jonin level, we need to standardize and emphasize anti-tailed beast techniques."
"Genjutsu. Sealing. Wide-area, high-output, multi-person combined techniques designed for tailed beasts."
"The village will open resources for those techniques and encourage Jonin to learn. There will also be assessment and oversight."
He let his gaze drift briefly toward Jiraiya, then Danzo.
In terms of combat style, both of them leaned toward large-scale ninjutsu backed by summons. If they were used correctly, they wouldn't be much weaker than a Jinchuriki on a battlefield.
"Prepare early. With the quality of Konoha's core forces, Jinchuriki strength is not something we can't match."
Quiet nods went around the table.
Jinchuriki were terrifying, yes.
But Konoha's elite weren't weak either. With urgency driving them, confidence came easier.
"As for our own village's Jinchuriki…" Hiruzen paused.
It wasn't a long pause, but everyone's attention sharpened anyway, like they'd all leaned in without realizing.
Now they were getting close to the real problem.
The kind that even the Hokage couldn't handle cleanly.
"Orochimaru submitted a report," Hiruzen said, not speaking Mito Uzumaki's name yet. "Combined with Blue B's memories, it's valuable."
"From bloodline, talent, and temperament, Blue B had the potential to control the Eight-Tails. So why did he still rampage?"
"According to the Second Hokage's research notes, tailed beast Chakra carries extremely negative emotion. And ordinary people will always fear a Jinchuriki, someone with massive power and the risk of losing control."
"Even if they don't spit insults, they'll keep their distance. It's instinct."
"That forces the Jinchuriki to live in a hollow world. Over time, the mind weakens. And then the tailed beast breaks through."
Hiruzen's voice stayed steady.
"But Konoha is different. With Lady Mito here, the village doesn't live in constant terror of rampages the way other hidden villages do. That's our early advantage."
"So our messaging needs to start now. We need villagers to associate the Jinchuriki with 'control,' with 'sacrifice,' with 'hero.'"
He looked down at the briefing again, then added, "Blue B didn't have the Uzumaki Clan's special Chakra. Kushina has that advantage."
Danzo's voice cut in, cold and harsh.
"And if she loses control?"
"If you sell that story, the village loses credibility the instant it fails. Who takes responsibility?"
The room tightened, tension snapping into place like a wire pulled too hard.