Naruto: Kage of Kages

When Shiki first activated the jutsu, he had inadvertently spied on Mito in her private study.

The boy could tell all her privacy barriers were up and if he could see through the barriers of an Uzumaki Sealing Master of the highest order, while remaining undetected by said Uzumaki who was also a sensory ninja of the highest order . . .

Then it was safe to say Shiki would be able to infringe upon anyone’s privacy without worries.

But that was a thought that came to him later, because at the moment he saw through Mito’s barriers, the things he perceived fully occupied the boy’s mind.

The first thing of note was Mito herself.

‘Mito-sama looks significantly younger, her hair color is more vibrant and most of her wrinkles have smoothed out.’ Shiki thought.

Rather than the grandmother of a near adult Tsunade, who still showed grace and a shadow of the beauty of her heyday, the redhead looked like an elegant and stunning middle aged woman with the charm of maturity yet unmarred by old age.

‘My Three Bodies Breathing Method combined with the Uzumaki constitution is truly effective.’ The boy thought.

‘The mistress is probably maintaining a show of decline due to age to gauge the village’s reaction and act accordingly.’ He mused.

But what truly grabbed Shiki’s attention was the completely unfurled scroll the Uzumaki matriarch was currently studying intently.

[Blood Spiral Sealing Arts]

If the ominous title was not enough to elucidate readers of its nature, the overly drawn out warning at the beginning of the scroll certainly was.

[Descendant of the Uzumaki who chose to break the vow of sealing I imposed our line. Seek not to unleash these forbidden arts back into the world for the consequences will be far greater than whatever challenges you found need of them to face.]

The warning text started.

[These abominable techniques are the shame of our clan’s foundation. To forget them would be seeking to avoid our past and our mistakes, to forget our very history and the sacrifices made so that the Uzumaki might thrive.]

The text continued on and on.

[Yet to study and use them would be repeating the barbaric mistakes of your fallen predecessors.

Return this scroll to its sealing place, wayward child of the Uzumaki and if you cannot, then you must destroy it instead for no good will come out of unleashing this terrible knowledge into the world.]

Yet despite the warning, clearly, Mito was still studying it and now, Shiki was looking at it too.

‘This is utterly unbelievable . . .’ The boy internally muttered as he used his Enlightened Mind’s Eye to memorize every single detail of the scroll.

He had only started working on the Whirlpool Sealing Style (Advanced) scroll after mastering the principles detailed on the basic one so most of the intricacies of the Blood Spiral Sealing Arts went right over his head.

However, Shiki could still memorize them and review them once his knowledge of the sealing arts was more adequate.

‘Still, the description of the various techniques and seals already paint quite the picture.’

Just as an example. A seal that popped out right away was the Essence Imprint Seal.

The function was simple, it packed a sealing formula with the physical and spiritual essence of a living sacrifice and then manifested the sacrifice’s innate abilities and power within whoever the sealing formula was placed on but with some serious side effects.

Namely, it would mutate the recipient of the sealing formula to adopt physical and mental features of the sacrifice with the resulting internal conflict ending with madness followed by a grim death.

These issues caused the seal to be classified as an incomplete work in the scroll.

‘This Uzumaki made this as a way to acquire the powers of another but if I look at it another way isn’t it a failed imitation of the Karma Seal of the Otsutsuki?’ Shiki asked himself.

The Karma Seal contained the essence of an Otsutsuki and would overwrite the recipient’s self with the Otsutsuki’s physical and spiritual data when said Otsutsuki perished, thus resurrecting them.

In comparison to the Essence Imprint Seal, the positions of sacrifice and beneficiary were reversed but the effects were the same, overwriting the information of one being with another’s.

Time passed quickly and Shiki finally memorized the huge volume of information tightly packed into the scroll and so, his attention turned back to his mistress that was now hovering over a particular section.

[Sanguine Furnace Seal]

[After a ritual site is engraved with the sealing formation formula, living sacrifices must be bled dry into a prepared receptacle at the site’s center.]

[With blood as the currency of the Soul, the sacrifices’ essence will be refined until all of their individuality is purged and then congealed into Sanguine Pills filled with potent lifeforce, physical and spiritual energies as well as soul power.]

[Every pill taken will increase the consumer’s lifeforce and lifespan, enhance their physical and spiritual strengths while also boosting their chakra capacity and potency but with every three pills, dangerous side effects will emerge.]

[One should only consume up to three which will result in the famed Bloodstained Demon’s Hair we Uzumaki have become notorious for. Each of the following three will result in increasing violent tendencies and uncontrollable bloodthirst.]

[As for the final three each one will begin to physically mutate the consumer into a blood starved fiend with no hope of salvation, whose soul is forfeit the instant their life ends.]

‘I noticed Mito-sama had been growing more spirited even if she hid her actual rejuvenation quite well but . . . It seems with a renewed will to live came a desire to triumph over old age and obtain the power to ensure her grandchildren would not follow the rest of their kin to the grave.’

Shiki was somewhat worried Mito might go off the rails but he decided to trust his mistress and her ability to show restraint in the use of the various forbidden arts within that scroll.

As the boy thought this, the redhead’s hand hovered over a set of seals he did not recognise but, after she traced a series of complex lines over its surface with chakra focused on her fingertip a bottle appeared right on top.

‘So it was a sort of advanced storage seal?’ Shiki deduced.

As for the contents of the bottle, since their storage seal was right next to the Sanguine Furnace Seal entry on the scroll, it should be Sanguine Pills, probably refined in the far past.

‘21 of those babies . . . Looks like no living sacrifices will be needed for now.’ Shiki observed. The notion of sacrifices perhaps did not bother him as much as it should.

Maybe it was the detachment resulting from his so-called enlightenment but he did not really want to ponder on the possible further consequences of such a thing.

Fortunately, the sound of Mito’s voice pulled Shiki out of his thoughts and let him marvel at the miraculous function of the Enlightened Mind’s Eye that enabled him to see, hear and even smell, taste and feel the environment of Mito’s study.

It opened up the possibility for some very questionable activities . . .

But now was not the time to consider them. Not when his Mistress was probably about to say something of importance he might want to hear.

The boy really felt bad about spying on Mito but he could not deny himself the allure of sweet secrets that such an action would grant him.

“Oh father . . . You did not pass down the secret guardianship of the Blood Spiral Sealing Arts to my brother due to his obsession with recreating the “lost” forbidden sealing arts of our clan yet now . . . Here I am falling into their temptation.”

The Uzumaki matriarch sounded almost melancholic.

“And Ashina you fool of an older brother. Burning your lifespan in your pursuit of the forbidden until you became a white haired old man in your sixties when our father looked younger at double the age.”

Getting those words out of her system, Mito’s eyes sharpened and, with no more pause or hesitation, she retrieved one of the Sanguine Pills in the bottle and downed it.

+++++

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