"Kenji, I want you to create another Wood Release puppet for the village."
Hiruzen's tone was serious. He'd been thinking about this since witnessing the demonstration, and had clearly reached a decision.
"The village will provide all necessary materials. This assignment will be classified as an A-rank mission. The only requirement is that the puppet must have the potential to contend with a tailed beast. Can you do that?"
Kenji didn't agree immediately. Instead, he chose honesty over empty promises.
"Hokage-sama, I can guarantee the puppet will be able to use Wood Release properly. But whether it can actually fight a tailed beast depends primarily on the controller's mental strength." He met Hiruzen's eyes directly. "I can suppress the Eight-Tails jinchūriki because I'm naturally gifted in spiritual power. My mental energy is significantly above average for the Yamanaka clan. If you assign this puppet to another clan member, the results might be weaker."
He paused, then continued, "As for the A-rank mission payment, I'd like to exchange it for something specific. The scrolls left behind by the First Hokage. I want to learn his Sage Mode techniques."
"The First Hokage's Sage Mode..."
Hiruzen's expression shifted slightly. He took a moment to consider, then spoke slowly.
"The Sage Mode that he mastered was a technique inherited through the Senju clan. It's not from the Three Great Sage Regions."
That didn't surprise Kenji. Only Hashirama among the Senju had possessed Wood Release. The other clan members hadn't inherited that bloodline. If they'd had no other advantages, the Senju couldn't have stood as equals to the Uchiha during the Warring States period. After all, Wood Release appeared once in a generation at best, while the Mangekyō Sharingan manifested regularly among the Uchiha.
They must have had some other edge. Sage Mode would fit that gap perfectly.
"I don't know where you heard about the Sage Mode techniques, but I should warn you that the Senju clan's version is extremely difficult to master. Even among the Senju themselves, very few could learn it successfully."
He nodded anyway, seeming to reach a decision.
"I'll have ANBU deliver the scroll to you. You're welcome to try. Even if you can't master it, at least you'll gain insight into another branch of our heritage."
"Thank you, Hokage-sama. I'll do my best."
Kenji bowed respectfully. This was exactly what he'd hoped for. Access to a Sage Mode tradition outside the Three Great Regions could open entirely new research directions.
"Then you'll stay in the village to create the puppet," Hiruzen said decisively. "Prepare a list of required materials and ANBU will deliver them immediately. The Sage Mode scroll will be sent along with the supplies."
"Understood. I'll go back and prepare the specifications. ANBU can collect the list later."
Kenji took his leave, heading back toward the village proper. Behind him, Hiruzen remained standing among the trees, staring at the dense forest with an unreadable expression.
---
When Kenji reached his house, the door opened before he could even knock.
"You're back!"
Honoka stood in the doorway, her expression brightening immediately. She stepped aside to let him in. "Come in, I'll heat some water so you can take a bath and rest."
She quickly set out house slippers while heading toward the bathroom to prepare hot water.
Kenji sat down on the living room couch. "This trip back was under Hokage's orders. I'll be staying in the village for a few days before returning to the border."
"Really? That's good to hear!"
Her voice carried from the bathroom. She'd been alone in the house for weeks, worrying about the border situation. Knowing he could stay longer clearly relieved some of that stress.
When she returned to the living room and sat in a nearby chair.
"I've been learning a lot of sealing techniques from Kushina lately. If the front lines need additional support, I could help."
"Not necessary right now," Kenji said. He didn't want her worrying about the Eight-Tails fight. "It's just small skirmishes on the border. Have you made any new progress with your training?"
"Oh, right! I learned something new!"
Her enthusiasm was contagious. She closed her eyes, and chakra began stirring around her. Golden light emerged from her back, forming into chains that extended outward. They were somewhat translucent, still developing.
"Adamantine Sealing Chains?"
Kenji was surprised. He knew Honoka's talents well. She excelled at sealing techniques and chakra control, but her combat abilities were average at best. In the original timeline, she'd been killed by the Ultimate Summoning Beast without being able to mount any real defense.
Yet here she was, successfully manifesting one of the Uzumaki clan's most powerful bloodline techniques.
He needed to somehow integrate it to his Uzumaki puppet. But it would take time, he knew firsthand how difficult it was to master. The Adamantine Sealing Chains were capable of restraining even the Nine-Tails. For Honoka to learn it far exceeded his expectations.
"Impressive, right?" She opened her eyes.
"You really are talented. That's an incredibly difficult technique to learn. The fact that you mastered it proves you have real talent for sealing arts and chakra manipulation."
"Actually, Kushina helped me a lot..." Honoka's expression softened. "I couldn't have done it without her guidance."
"Even so, it's still the result of your own hard work," Kenji said firmly. "No amount of teaching matters if you don't have the foundation and dedication to build on it. You should be proud of this."
"Thanks." She smiled, then stood up. "Alright, go take your bath already. The hot water's going to get cold."
Kenji stood and headed toward the bathroom.
Currently in Konoha, counting Honoka, and Kushina, there were two individuals capable of using Adamantine Sealing Chains. Add in the Wood Release puppet, and the village's defensive capabilities against tailed beasts had increased dramatically.
If the Nine-Tails incident still happened in a few years, they'd be far better prepared than in the original timeline. Between the binding chains and Wood Release suppression, they could contain the beast long enough to reseal it without nearly as much destruction.
As for Obito...
Kenji had never intended to change what happened at Kannabi Bridge. The tragedy there was orchestrated entirely by Madara. Even if he somehow saved Obito once, Madara would just find another method, time, or way to push him toward darkness.
Some people were too far gone before the crucial moment even arrived. Obito's immaturity and his naive worldview made him vulnerable. His personality had set his fate long before Rin died.
He had no interest in playing savior for someone who'd become a mass murderer regardless. Better to focus on protecting the people who deserved it.
---
The next morning, ANBU arrived with all the materials Kenji had listed for puppet construction. Hashirama cells, chakra-conductive metals, specialized binding agents... The quality was even higher than he'd requested.
Over the following days, he split his time between his secret workshop and spending time with Kaede and Haruto around the village. He had to admit it was a nice change of pace from the constant tension of border duty.
But most of his focus went into two projects: the commissioned Wood Release puppet, and something he'd been theorizing.
A sound-based combat puppet.
The idea had been stuck in his head ever since that fight with Gyūki. When the Eight-Tails had let out that high-pitched roar. It reminded him of seasickness, that nauseating feeling when your body couldn't tell which way was up.
If a tailed beast could weaponize sound like that, why couldn't he?
He'd spent the first day just researching the theoretical foundation. Sound was vibration traveling through a medium, usually air. Frequency determined pitch, low frequencies were bass, high frequencies were shrill. Amplitude determined volume.
But weaponizing it? That was complicated.
Wind Release could push air around, create pressure waves, even generate cutting forces. But sound wasn't just moving air. It was about precise frequencies, resonance, interference patterns. A Wind Release technique might create a loud noise as a side effect, but that wasn't the same as deliberately targeting someone's auditory system or disrupting their equilibrium.
He needed something more precise.
His first attempt was embarrassingly crude. He'd built a puppet torso with a hollow chamber in the chest cavity, thinking he could use it like a drum. Chakra would vibrate the walls, creating sound waves that would propagate outward.
The result was underwhelming.
When he activated it, the puppet made a dull thump. Not even particularly loud. The vibrations dissipated too quickly, and the frequency was completely wrong. It sounded like someone hitting a waterlogged piece of wood.
"Wrong approach," he muttered, disassembling the failed prototype. "I'm not trying to make a musical instrument. I need directed sound."
He changed tactics. Instead of trying to generate sound from a resonating chamber, what if he created it at the source? Vocal cords worked by vibrating as air passed through them. Maybe he could replicate that mechanism.
The second attempt involved constructing an artificial throat and mouth structure. He used treated leather for the vocal cord equivalent, stretched across a frame that could be tensed or relaxed to change pitch. A pair of chakra-powered bellows would force air through the structure, and the mouth cavity would act as an amplifier.
This version actually produced recognizable sounds. Sort of.
The problem was control. The "vocal cords" vibrated at inconsistent frequencies, creating a warbling, fluctuating noise that sounded more like a dying animal than a weapon. And worse, the leather degraded rapidly under the stress. After maybe thirty seconds of continuous use, the material would tear and the whole system would fail.
"Durability is a problem," he said to himself, examining the shredded remains of the artificial throat. "And I still don't have precise frequency control."
He tried replacing the leather with chakra-conductive metal sheets. They were more durable, but they vibrated at completely wrong frequencies, too high-pitched, almost ultrasonic. The sound they produced was painful to listen to but didn't have the disorienting effect he wanted.
Three days into the project, he'd burned through a dozen different designs and materials. Nothing worked correctly.
The issue was that he didn't understand sound well enough. Wind Release was intuitive to him after years of practice. He understood how air moved, the way pressure differentials created force, and the methods to shape and direct the flow. But sound? Sound was physics he'd only ever learned theoretically in his previous life, and even then not in enough depth.
Frequency, amplitude, wavelength, resonance, interference patterns, the relationship between sound pressure levels and decibels... All of it was abstract knowledge without practical application.
He sat in his workshop, surrounded by failed prototypes, and stared at his notes. Pages and pages of calculations, diagrams, hypothetical designs. None of it had translated into a working weapon.
"I need to approach this differently," he said finally. "Stop trying to replicate biological systems. Think about what I want to achieve."
The goal wasn't to make sound. The goal was to disrupt an enemy's equilibrium, cause disorientation, maybe even physical damage through resonance. Sound was just the delivery mechanism.
What if he focused on the effects first and worked backward?
Human inner ears had fluid-filled semicircular canals that detected rotation and balance. Those canals responded to specific frequencies. If he could generate a sustained tone at the right frequency, he could potentially induce vertigo or nausea.
But what was the "right frequency"? And how would it vary between different people? Smaller people might be more susceptible to higher frequencies, while larger opponents might require lower tones. Age, species, even individual physiology could all be factors.
Too many variables. He needed experimental data he didn't have.
"Maybe I'm overcomplicating this," he muttered. "Start simpler. Proof of concept first."
He stripped the design back to basics. No throat structure, vocal cords, or complex resonance chambers. Just a flat metal plate mounted on a pivot, powered by a small chakra motor that could vibrate it rapidly.
The plate design worked better. It could generate consistent frequencies by varying the vibration speed. Low frequencies created a rumbling bass that he could feel in his chest. High frequencies produced a piercing whine that made his teeth ache.
But it still wasn't a weapon. It was just annoying.
The effective range was maybe three meters before the sound dissipated. The volume wasn't sufficient to cause real disorientation. And directing the sound in a specific direction proved almost impossible, it radiated in all directions equally, meaning it would affect allies as much as enemies.
He spent another full day trying to create a directional housing, a cone or horn shape that would focus the sound forward like a megaphone. That helped somewhat with directionality, but cut the volume even further.
"This is frustrating," he said, rubbing his temples. His own puppet was giving him a headache from testing it.
By the fifth day, he'd managed to create something that could charitably be called a "working prototype." It was a puppet about the size of his torso, with a chakra-powered oscillating plate housed inside a forward-facing horn. It could generate sustained tones at varying frequencies, had an effective range of maybe five meters, and could produce sound loud enough to be uncomfortable.
But as a weapon? It was marginal at best.
He tested it on himself at minimum power, and yeah, certain frequencies made him feel mildly nauseated or off-balance. But it took sustained exposure, at least ten to fifteen seconds, before the effect became noticeable. In a real fight, no opponent would stand still long enough for it to matter.
"Not ready," he concluded, sealing the prototype away. "I understand wind and pressure. But sound... I need to study this more before I can make it combat-effective."
It was humbling, honestly. He'd gotten used to successfully creating new puppets and techniques through experimentation and his knowledge from both lives. This project had reminded him that there were still areas where he lacked understanding.
Sound manipulation wasn't impossible. He'd seen what Gyūki could do, and he knew from his previous life that sound-based techniques existed in this world. But replicating those effects through puppetry? That would require deeper research into acoustics, human physiology, and probably some trial and error with test subjects.
For now, he shelved the project. Maybe he'd come back to it later when he had more time and resources. Or maybe he'd find someone with expertise in sound manipulation and learn from them.
He refocused his attention on the Wood Release puppet, which at least he understood.
For the village's commissioned puppet, he decided to use an improved version of the "weakened" framework he'd originally designed for Danzō. The core would still use Hashirama cells fused with regular Senju clan cells as a base, but he'd incorporate years of experience from building his own full-power Wood Release puppet.
The key improvements were in material processing. He'd learned how to treat the chakra-conductive metal to better resist Wood Release chakra's corrosive properties.
He started with the frame construction.
The skeleton used a lattice of treated chakra metal, providing structural integrity while allowing chakra to flow through efficiently. Each joint required calibration to handle the massive forces Wood Release techniques would generate.
Next came the cellular integration layer. This was the most delicate part. Hashirama cells were notoriously aggressive, trying to consume and convert any biological material they contacted. He had to carefully balance the ratio of Hashirama cells to regular Senju cells, creating a stable hybrid that could generate Wood Release chakra without destroying the puppet from the inside.
The outer shell came next. He used treated wood from rare trees that naturally resisted chakra corruption, layering them in overlapping segments that could flex and reform during combat. The surface was etched with microscopic chakra channels that helped distribute energy evenly throughout the body.
Finally, he installed the control interface nodes. These connected to the operator's mental energy, translating their intentions into physical action. The nodes had to be carefully positioned to maximize response time while preventing feedback that could damage the operator's mind.
Afterhours of intensive work, Wood Release Puppet 2.0 was complete.
He ran it through a series of tests, controlling it remotely through Mind Clone Switch to check all systems. Movement was fluid, chakra flow was stable, and the Wood Release techniques manifested with about 30% more power than Danzō's version.
The puppet now incorporated nearly one-third Hashirama cells by volume, compared to maybe 15-20% in the version he'd given Danzō. That increased ratio translated directly to stronger Wood Release capabilities.
Originally, he had considered designing the puppet like powered armor, something the operator could wear and be protected by. But he'd abandoned that approach after running the calculations.
The puppet's interior needed space for the chakra-conductive metal framework and the core mechanism that housed the Hashirama cells. Adding room for a human operator while maintaining structural integrity would have resulted in something nearly three meters tall. A giant mech might look impressive, but against high-speed, high-attack ninjas, it would just be a massive target.
Better to keep it human-sized and mobile, right?
The only remaining limitation was the controller's mental strength. A Yamanaka clan member with sufficient spiritual power could use this puppet to contest a tailed beast. Someone with weaker mental energy would still be effective, just not at that highest level.
He sealed the puppet into a storage scroll and prepared to deliver it to the Hokage's office.