Sasuke turned the problem over carefully.
As far as he was concerned, he had no intention of pinning his hopes on the Sage of Six Paths simply appearing one day to bestow something upon him.
He also had no intention of following the original story's path, where defeating Otsutsuki Kaguya required joining forces with Naruto, and even then only barely, through a desperate and harrowing struggle.
His ambitions were considerably larger than most people would have imagined.
He wanted to handle Uchiha Madara, Six Paths Madara, and even Otsutsuki Kaguya on his own.
That was why, from the very beginning, he had been working on how to achieve the most complete version of his own bloodline. The Six Paths Hagoromo lineage was only the first step. The second was Otsutsuki Hamura.
Only by bringing his bloodline genuinely close to that of Otsutsuki Kaguya herself, who had once merged with the divine tree and the Ten-Tails, would he be able to stand against Kaguya alone, and beyond her, whatever members of the Otsutsuki clan came after.
What still eluded him was why the Otsutsuki bloodline's descendants would conflict so severely with the divine tree bloodline's descendants when brought together. After all, the Otsutsuki clan itself could switch between the Byakugan and the Rinnegan freely.
In Boruto, he had only seen the film and sixty-five episodes or so, but he knew that Hinata Hyuga had married Uzumaki Naruto, and the two had produced children, Uzumaki Boruto and Uzumaki Himawari.
So where exactly was the critical difference?
Sasuke's expression grew still, his eyes moving with quiet focus, turning everything in his memory from his previous life over and over.
Then something surfaced suddenly, a flash of intuition.
"Could it be sage arts?"
He murmured the words with a trace of uncertainty.
From what Sasuke understood, the Hyuga clan operated as a strictly hierarchical, patriarchal family. They absolutely forbade their bloodline from flowing outside the clan. They married only within the clan.
The Uchiha at least had relatives by marriage from outside the clan. The Hyuga had never allowed that.
To protect the Kekkei Genkai, they had split into the main house and the branch house. The main house carried the Byakugan from generation to generation. The branch house was bound to protect the main house with their lives.
Both in what Sasuke had read in the Uchiha clan's records and in what the original story had shown, there was exactly one known instance of a Hyuga marrying outside the clan: Hinata.
If Naruto had anything unusual about him beyond his own bloodline, it was the Sage Mode he had trained to master at Mount Myoboku.
Was it possible that Hinata Hyuga and Uzumaki Naruto being able to have children together was connected to Sage Arts?
The thought made Sasuke feel like he had found something. And it brought to mind another person: the Kabuto who had emerged during the Fourth Great Ninja War.
That version of Kabuto had absorbed not only Orochimaru's cells and the Sound Five's cells, but also the First Hokage's cells and Uzumaki Karin's cells.
He had become something between human and not-human. But he had been completely alive, with none of the severe conflict that should have followed.
"Is it really Sage Arts?"
Sasuke didn't know how the Otsutsuki clan managed to merge perfectly with the divine tree and the Ten-Tails.
But based on the information available to him, if there was a method within the shinobi world's framework, Sage Arts seemed to be playing a critical role somewhere in that process.
He needed to complete both the divine tree Ten-Tails bloodline and the Otsutsuki bloodline. The two were not mutually exclusive goals. The real question, the one he would have to face later, was how to merge them together.
Using Sage Arts as the binding principle to fuse the divine tree Ten-Tails bloodline with the Otsutsuki bloodline. Was that viable?
He turned it over carefully for a while, then suddenly laughed.
"Whether it is or it isn't, I'll try it later and find out."
He had already planned to learn Sage Arts anyway. If it might turn out to be the key to merging the two bloodlines someday, it was only more essential.
Otsutsuki Sasuke?
Sage Sasuke?
And Uchiha Sasuke?
Heh.
Sasuke shook his head, finished organizing the experimental data in the laboratory, and walked out. He gathered Guren, the Sound Four, and the Hebi team.
"Tayuya. Take those four with you and go to the Hidden Grass Village area. Find out everything you can about the Heavenly Box. If you're exposed at any point, pull out immediately. Do not get drawn into a fight."
Sasuke looked at the silent Guren and continued.
"And then what? After we've gathered the information?" Guren replied with undisguised irritation.
"Stay in position and wait for my next instruction." Sasuke answered calmly. "Understood?"
Guren drew in a slow breath. Finally, she gave a nod. "Understood. I'll do as you've ordered, Lord Sasuke."
Her tone was composed, but Sasuke caught the faintest edge of teeth behind it.
He didn't mind. "Then go."
Guren gave a short huff, said nothing further, and left the hall with the Sound Four in tow.
After she was gone, Sasuke turned to address the three members of Hebi.
"As for you three, Jugo, Suigetsu, and Karin, stay here for now. Focus on your training."
"Hmm? What about you?" Karin's expression shifted into something slightly crestfallen as she pressed the question. "Aren't we a team, Sasuke? If we're a team, you should be taking us with you."
"What I need to do next, I can do alone." Sasuke shook his head. "Your strength isn't where it needs to be yet. You wouldn't be much help at this stage. Use the time to thoroughly work through what I've given you."
He had given Karin the Uzumaki clan's secret sealing techniques. He had given Suigetsu additional Water Release techniques on top of the lightning sword method.
And for Jugo, Sasuke had taught him a small set of techniques he had developed from his own research into yoga and meditation.
Jugo was, in a certain sense, a natural sage mode user. He had an innate ability to absorb natural energy and to commune with nature, understanding animals without effort.
The problem was that he couldn't control the natural energy, which caused him to lose control and experience intense urges to kill.
Sasuke wanted to see whether combining yoga and meditation might produce unexpected results in Jugo's case. In a way, Jugo was a preliminary experiment for Sasuke's own future study of Sage Arts.
"Fine..."
Karin pressed her lips together but ultimately said nothing.
Jugo and Suigetsu beside her both nodded without complaint. Suigetsu was eager to dig into the lightning sword techniques and the Water Release methods himself. He had no interest in spending time on a mission outside.
Jugo had suffered under the weight of his killing urges for as long as he could remember. Now that he had a meditation practice to work through, something that might help him quiet that impulse, he hadn't even come close to mastering it yet. He wasn't particularly eager to go anywhere either.
Beyond that, his closest friend Kimimaro was lying unconscious in a tank somewhere nearby. None of them knew how many days he had left. Jugo wanted to be close during whatever time remained.
With the assignments given, the members of Hebi went their separate ways. Sasuke remained in the hall alone.
"Sasuke, are you heading out?"
After a while, Kabuto came in and asked with a mild smile.
"Yes."
Kabuto gave a nod and didn't press further. "Don't worry about things here. While you're gone, I'll manage the Hidden Sound. Nothing will go wrong."
What a perfectly reliable instrument.
Sasuke noted this inwardly with a touch of quiet appreciation. "Then I'll leave things to you, Senior Kabuto."
"One more thing. Any news on Yomi's whereabouts?"
Kabuto shook his head. "From what our intelligence shows, there were signs of his presence somewhere around the Land of Tea last month. We've lost track of him since then. I'll push the search and find him as soon as possible."
"Understood. You've worked hard."
With that brief exchange, Sasuke left the hall.
Kabuto watched him go for a long time before pulling his gaze back. He murmured quietly. "Everything I'm doing now is for Lord Orochimaru."
Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh!
Once outside the Hidden Sound, Sasuke blurred into a sequence of afterimages and shot toward the west.
Destination: The Star Village in the Land of Bears.
Target: The meteorite of stars.
___
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