"....Let's discuss with Koharu and Homura together."
After contemplating for a while, Sarutobi Hiruzen finally instructed Anbu to call for them. He wasn't as decisive as he used to be.
Danzo noticed this too and couldn't help but let out a cold laugh in his heart. If it were during the Second Ninja World War, Hiruzen would have probably made a decision long ago.
Soon enough, Utatane Koharu and Mitokado Homura arrived at the Hokage Office. They were in the same class and team back then, decades of partnership, and Sarutobi Hiruzen was already used to relying on them for advice and plans.
Informing them of the information Danzo had gathered and the situation at Kikyo Castle, Utatane Koharu and Mitokado Homura quickly deduced the current state of the Ninja World after some thought.
Looking at it this way, the Land of Fire seemed to be in a precarious situation, with too many places about to go to war, and not enough new ninja.
"Hiruzen, what do you plan to do?"
Sarutobi Hiruzen added a bit of tobacco to his pipe, lit it, took a puff, and said, "Regarding the Hidden Cloud, I plan to have Hatake Sakumo lead three ninja corps first, and have Orochimaru stay in the village for now....."
Since there was no clear movement from the Hidden Rock Ninja, there always had to be reserves, and even though Hidden Mist seemed honest, there was always the chance they might take advantage of the situation.
"Assigning Hatake Sakumo to handle the Land of Hot Water area is alright, but this time Hidden Cloud Village is coming strong, giving him too few men would be difficult to manage....."
Mitokado Homura suggested. Once Sarutobi Hiruzen made a decision, he and Utatane Koharu would fill in the gaps.
In their discussion, the four quickly decided on the personnel and number of ninja to respond to Hidden Cloud Village.
Danzo originally wanted the position of East Line Commander too. He noticed Sarutobi Hiruzen's weakness earlier and eyed this opportunity to earn achievements in this war, aiming for the Hidden Cloud Village.
East Line operations were far more difficult than those at Kikyo Castle, and Hidden Cloud's strength was greater than Hidden Sand's. Were he to defeat Hidden Cloud, the acclaim would easily surpass Jiraiya's.
With the backing of the Second Generation Hokage as his mentor and war achievements, he hoped to compete for the Fourth Generation Hokage.
Danzo was also confident due to the Third Generation Raikage losing an arm, along with Wind Escape being superior to Lightning Release, bolstering his confidence tremendously.
However, his proposal was directly vetoed by Sarutobi Hiruzen. Hatake Sakumo was also a powerful Wind Release Ninja, and the Root needed his leadership and intelligence gathering.
A set of righteous reasons left Danzo with no choice but to give up the command position.
After making the plan, Sarutobi Hiruzen, Utatane Koharu, and Mitokado Homura began to discuss the finer details, deciding which people to send and handling logistics and medical support, all of which needed to be confirmed.
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[Dream Master]: Part of the abilities from being the Dream God, allowing the creation of anything within a dream, where actions in the dream follow the rules of reality and memories and sensations in the dream are transferred to the real body.
This was Uchiha Yoichi's new ability, which he felt was very strong and could become even stronger if harnessed properly, only it required careful development.
Powers involving gods and rules, when used well, are fearsome beyond belief, and this Dream Master is no exception.
"Let's give it a try first. You always need experimentation to understand how to utilize an ability. But I'm not sleepy at the moment...."
Thinking it over, Uchiha Yoichi went out to Konoha Hospital to buy some sleeping pills to force himself to sleep if necessary.
Upon returning home, he used Summoning Jutsu to summon a small snake capable of understanding human speech, to help keep watch over his body; this was arranged by Shinga in Ryuchi Cave. Snakes capable of understanding human speech often possessed great potential, and with proper nurturing, could develop to impressive powers.
After taking the sleeping pills, Uchiha Yoichi quickly fell asleep.
As soon as he nodded off, he felt his consciousness shift, and he suddenly found himself in a blank space.
"It's too bright...."
Uchiha Yoichi frowned and muttered instinctively, then the space dimmed to an acceptable level of brightness.
"Controlled at my will? As expected of Dream Master, living up to its name.... If what's said is true, the memories and sensations within the dream are also transferred to the real body, it sounds very similar to the Shadow Clone technique—meaning that what I train in the dream also carries over when I wake up..."
"Forty-eight hours, is that all the time I have within the dream? That's rather short... I'll see how the real body reacts once outside and then decide."
"Shadow Clone Jutsu!"
Creating a shadow clone, Uchiha Yoichi immediately felt his chakra split, just like using ninjutsu in reality.
"You go practice the Flying Thunder God Jutsu, while I attend to other things."
Uchiha Yoichi tasked the shadow clone to practice the still less familiar Flying Thunder God Jutsu while he began training in Reanimation Jutsu.
"A sacrifice, the collected blood and flesh, and the scroll!"
Upon his words, these three items appeared before him, causing Uchiha Yoichi's eyes to flicker with surprise.
He stepped forward to inspect them; the sacrifice was an unconscious stranger who could be used at any time to activate the Reanimation Jutsu; the blood and flesh belonged to Mabum, and the marks on the Storage Scroll were all personally made by him.
"Let's give it a try...."
Following that, Uchiha Yoichi commenced his practice of Reanimation Jutsu.
This is a Forbidden Technique capable of summoning the deceased back from the Pure Land, initially created by the Second Generation Hokage to work with another Forbidden Technique known as the Tandem Paper Bomb Jutsu, where only a Reanimation Body with the ability of infinite rebirth can harness the full power of the Tandem Paper Bombs.
Yet it was Orochimaru and Yakushi Kabuto's modifications that allowed Reanimation bodies to gradually regain their former life powers.
How exactly they modified it, Uchiha Yoichi did not know, but he recalled that the better the sacrifice, the more the reanimated body could manifest its powers from life. The best sacrifice being the White Zetsu possessing Hashirama Cells.
"Improved Summoning Jutsu to communicate with the Netherworld, leveraging the chakra contained within the blood and flesh for summoning.... Dammit, the Second Generation Hokage truly was a genius, modifying it in such a way..."
In his first attempt, Uchiha Yoichi merely copied what he could, paying no mind to boosting strength, as long as the Reanimation succeeded, it counted as a win.
With the dream being capable of providing even living humans, communicating with the Netherworld via Reanimation should pose no issue, especially since his actions abide by the rules of reality.
First Reanimation, failure!
Only summoning a heap of scraps to attach to the sacrifice, causing the sacrifice to perish right after.
"Looks like there was an error in the Summoning Jutsu, let's try another sacrifice..."
Second Reanimation, still a failure!
Third Reanimation....
Fourth Reanimation....
Fifth Reanimation....
......
After half-hour attempts, Uchiha Yoichi must have tried over seventy times, leaving his eyes somewhat red.
"This time it has to succeed!"
Having committed nearly every possible mistake, Uchiha Yoichi noted his reflections beside him to avoid the more than seventy prior errors this time.
"Reanimation Jutsu!"
The summoning formulas appeared, a heap of scraps rose on the sacrifice's body, followed by the sacrifice's groaning in pain. The scraps enveloped the sacrifice, soon transforming into the figure of Mabum.
"Succeeded!"
Uchiha Yoichi's face lit up with joy, indicating that the Reanimation Jutsu had succeeded at the critical step; next, he needed to implant the control talisman into its head.
The control talisman had been prepared in advance, albeit unused until over seventy tries later.
Once the control talisman was inserted, Uchiha Yoichi awakened Mabum's consciousness.
"Why, why am I here? Lord Raikage..."
"Silence!"
Uchiha Yoichi commanded, and Mabum fell silent, though still glaring furiously at him.
"Use Shadow Clone Jutsu at full strength."
Mabum followed the order, performing Shadow Clone Jutsu, though he managed to create only three clones.
"Three shadow clones, even at full strength... His chakra amount is less than that of a Chunin!"
Seeing this, Uchiha Yoichi's mouth twitched—this quality of Reanimation was among the worst, though thankfully it was a success.
"If improvements were needed... capability would be related to the sacrifice, thus the control power of the Reanimated Body must be enhanced. Orochimaru and Yakushi Kabuto likely improved the control talisman; lacking it, controlling dozens of Reanimations would truly deplete one's energy!"
Uchiha Yoichi pondered, realizing that controlling one Reanimated Body alone consumed some of his focus, and with more than two, he needed full concentration for constant management.
Continuing the experiments!