(Orochimaru pov)
Despite the flaws it possessed I was perfectly aware that in the hands of a skilled iryonin the technique truly shown but it had uses in other fields as well that the boy seemed to overlook. For example alchemists would likely get a vast amount of use from the technique as they could prepare herbs and medicines methodically that you would normally need days to weeks to prepare as a single person in half or less than that amount of time. Other production type occupations would also be allowed to ramp up drastically with this technique.-
The boy was correct in his explanation of the techniques uselessness in combat though as all the technique would accomplish in that situation was to make more inferior shinobi. If a problem required numbers rather than power that would be fine but history has proven that power trumps numbers in almost all regards. What I wanted the technique for however was it’s potential use in fuinjutsu. The biggest flaw in the sealing arts was the strain and requirements that a single seal master had to deal with when using powerful seals.-
It drained ones chakra and if you wanted your seals to cover a large area you needed either time , help or massive chakra reserves. This technique however allows a seal master to effectively become two or more people with identical chakra signatures and amounts all perfectly in sync. All the downsides of the technique were worth risking in the face of this massive amount of utility. I had my best subordinate in the village, Kabuto attempting to learn the technique as well as sway the boy towards joining me. It was surprisingly not going very well. All the information I had on the boy painted him as nearly identical to myself mentally speaking.-
Yet he was spurning the subtle manipulations Kabuto was using that a younger me would have definitely taken. I couldn’t understand where the issue lied as I was so certain this would work. It was possible that the fault may lie with the boys senses as Kabuto had reported that the boy was suspicious of him. Manipulations do tend to fail when one knows that they are being manipulated after all. This left me in a rather tight spot as on one hand Kabuto was the best option for this and on the other his chance of success is innately compromised if they boy was suspicious of him.-
I could only trust Kabuto to do his best while fully expecting failure but I always had back up plans. I had thought about attempting to have one of my younger subordinates try and seduce the boy but reports were clear that he cared little for the opposite sex’s attention. I also couldn’t target the boys relatives or friends to manipulate him either as the moment I even contemplated it my instincts warned me against it heavily which was a surprise in and of itself.-
I had fought a great many powerful enemies in my life and the times my instincts have warned me like this are few and far between but each and every time was for good reason. The last time this had happened was when I had contemplated snatching Pains eyes out of his head and the danger I felt in that instant was suffocating. This made me curious as to why my instincts would warn me against taking action against those close to the boy and I nudged that fool Mizuki into acting against the Jinchuriki of the nine tails.-
The results spoke for themselves as the fool suffered a humiliating and overwhelming defeat under the boys hands despite activating the flawed curse mark I had given him. I decided to reevaluate the boy at that point as I had clearly underestimated his strength. My desire to possess his body only increased however as the more he improved the better for when I eventually had that body for myself. With this in mind I redoubled my efforts on fusing the dojutsu bloodlines together while cultivating a large amount of the first Hokages cells to be fused with the final perfected result. Just imagining the final fusion in the boys body filled me with excitement and I went back to work.-
(Normal pov)
Kabuto had proven my suspicions correct when he had started subtly feeding me advanced knowledge and sly hints of offering more. No one without a high degree of skill would even know what he was referencing in most cases and that meant he was hiding for some reason and I doubted it was for the villages sake. It was clear to me however that he DEFINITELY didn’t have my best interests in mind and that was reason enough for me to ignore him entirely.-
Time passed and soon three months came and went with a few things changing during this period. Kakashi had finally taken his team on a C ranked mission that went well. It was a simple bandit extermination mission so obviously the team did well and returned without a scratch. Naruto bragged about it for days before I had subtly passed a message to Kakashi that he wasn’t training his squad hard enough if they still had so much energy. It was a mean prank to pull but it was all for their benefit even if they didn’t think so.-
Kakashi had basically just started holding joint training exercises with his self proclaimed rival, Might Guy’s squad that consisted of Neji, Rock Lee and Tenten. That squad was interesting as for lack of a better description it was purely physical force related, no ninjutsu at all. Neji was a Hyuga and as such was specialized in gentle fist. Rock Lee was learning Guy’s own strong fist style taijutsu and Tenten was a weapons specialist. This was an unusual squad formation but one I wholeheartedly approved of as each member covered a point the others lacked in.-
Rock Lee was a heavy hitter, Neji could defuse ninjutsu and scout ahead and Tenten was a ranged threat with her many projectile weapons. In a weirdly effective way they covered the tank, attacker and ranger roles perfectly and only lacked a healer to be a near perfect unit. Might Guy as a sensei was terrible at teaching ninjutsu but was excellent at training physical prowess which Kakashi was taking advantage of. It was a bit lazy of him to just co opt Guy’s training with his squad but it was good training so I wasn’t really bothered by it.-
I myself had been working on mastering B rank jutsu of each of the elements while I kept an ear out for any word of powerful chakra beasts I could snatch. So far I had mastered one water jutsu and one fire jutsu at the B rank and was currently working on an earth jutsu which was also nearing completion. In addition I was spending a good deal of time working on trying to create a new chakra technique that expanded on my chakra flow, chakra layering and chakra phantom techniques to create solid constructs of pure chakra.