Hit and Run

Above the Mountain's Graveyard, floating in the air, the Reaper prepared for his assault.

'First, I'll try and get everything I can without drawing any attention and only after doing that, will I use my soul clones to plunder everything that would alert the owner at the same time and bolt before he arrives . . .' He planned as he prepared for his entrance.

With his Yominorei, the spacetime ability of his combined mangekyou, Shiki teleported into the hideout, bypassing any and all security.

'Heh! I bet Obito never thought someone would use the same method he uses to slip into sealed locations, on is own hideout.' He said in his mind with schadenfreude.

Shiki then appeared, still invisible and with his chakra suppressed and hidden, inside Obito's laboratory.

The things Shiki could steal without alerting the White Zetsus that were guarding the place were not many but still important.

He stole all of Obito's money and surgical equipment, even though he didn't need the money and the equipment even less so.

'WHen Obito fancies himself to start a war, it will be on my terms . . . And for that to happen, causing delays so that I can have more time to prepare is key.' Shiki thought.

Next up, he stole all of Obito's spare sharingan that he kept.

'Wow! The bastard as even more than Danzo!' Shiki observed.

He took all the weapons, including Madara's good old Gunbai and even took the chance to swipe a sample of his corpse.

'With this, I can summon Madara's soul . . . Not for melding though. No, I have other plans for this particular soul. Hehehehe . . .'

Shiki then released the soul clones that were being stored in his body, specifically for this mission. His next set of actions would inevitably alert the Zetsu guards so they had to be executed simultaneously so the he could retreat before Obito could teleport in after being warned.

'I'm confident I can take him on but I have no desire to do it now . . . I still need him to spark a world wide war for me after all.' Shiki thought.

What would happen next would be a simultaneous strike to steal all the main objectives of this little trip, The Hashirama Tree, mass amounts of sealed White Zetsu, Guruguru Zetsu and finally place a little surprise into the Gedo Statue that was kept here . . .

'Time to go loud!'

Thinking this Shiki sent all of his soul clones to their positions and activated Dohatsuten, causing a massive explosion in the facility that took out any nearby Zetsus and attracted the others to his location.

Immediately after that, he disappeared with a use of his Yominorei and his soul clones sprung into action.

One sealed the Hashirama Tree into a scroll along with Guruguru who was fused with it.

Another placed a specially prepared Soul Curse Tag onto the Gedo Statue that melded into it, disappearing without a trace.

The rest were all equipped with large urns the were crafted by Shiki, purposely for this occasion, even though they had other uses.

Adamantine Sealing Urns, this item absorbed the user's chakra and so long as they were of the Uzumaki clan, they activated, shooting out countless Adamantine Sealing Chains from the mouth of the urn and dragging any pierced target into it.

The pulling strength and number of chains however, was limited by the power and amount of chakra their wielder possessed but with several Shiki clones with five chakra pools thanks to Jiongu, Perfect Sage States and two Strength of a Hundred Seals each, such a thing was not a problem.

And so countless Zetsu were sealed. Even so, many more remained. Obito did not yet have the full numbers he had at the time of Shippuden but he was definitely close and Shiki's pots were quite full already.

'I could just leave the rest be . . .' Shiki thought.

'Or not!' He said in his mind with a creepy smile as he activated a super large Dohatsuten, bigger than anyone in the Tsuchigumo clan could ever hope to make, blowing most of Obito's hideout sky high in a massive explosion that shook the land.

Watching from a distance, the real Shiki said out loud to himself.

"Ha! Art is an EXPLOSION! Deidara ain't got shit on me!"

Before disappearing back to his desert fortress.

'Time to start converting my gains into actual benefits.' Thinking this, Shiki went to see Tsunade and and Orochimaru who were working in the lab with their respective assistants Shizune and Kabuto.

"Attention!" He said out loud drawing the attention of the four.

"Back with spoils?" Tsunade asked, having known where Shiki had gone to.

'He just went to the hideout of a powerful criminal organization and probably took everything he wanted with no problems at all . . . It seems my eye for men has improved!' Tsunade complimented herself in her mind.

"Indeed! I have new research materials for the four of you and they take precedence over whatever you may be working on right now so if it's not critical, get on them." Shiki commanded.

"What may they ever be?" Orochimaru asked.

"Over a hundred thousand White Zetsus from the akatsuki for you to experiment on . . ." Shiki started, dumbfounding Shizune and Kabuto as well as making Orochimaru creepily move his tongue around.

"And a tree clone of the First Hokage." Shiki finished.

"What!?" Tsunade shouted.

"You'll see Tsuna-nee, I have out them in storage so have fun. A report based on what I know of them is together with the materials as well." Shiki said as he left.

"Oh I will!" Orochimaru unconsciously answered, making Tsunade glare at him.

'Now then . . . Time for me to take care of my own research as well."

Shiki had three things to do in his current plans. Research Guruguru, the unique White Zetsu that he had already separated from the Hashirama Tree, develop his own new and improved Curse Mark and finally try to see if he could improve his less used powers.

Unfortunately, many of his stolen hidden jutsu were becoming quite useless so Shiki was looking for a way to improve upon them.

On another note, the progress of his New Tailed Beast Experiment was satisfactory but still slow and would take a few years to show results.

The Tailed Beast Scroll on the other hand, was ready for use after being improved. Shiki was thinking of testing it out after his was done with his currently planned tasks.

For Guruguru, Shiki's plans were simple. Wipe his outer soul while preserving his body leaving a fully functional being without a personality.

Then, with his knowledge of weapon crafting, taken from various sources such as the Land of Snow and Spring, Takumi Village, Suna and even Kiri, Shiki would refine Guruguru into a living armor.

After that, he would simply make cloning experiments, which should be simple enough since Zetsu can create clones of themselves already with their spore jutsu, to create subordinate armors while the original remained the master armor to be used by him alone.

'My main goal is not just to create a powerful armor though . . . As a White Zetsu, based existence, it will have the ability to meld with the user's flesh. That way, it won't get in the way of the physical transformations of the Shikotsumyaku and Sage Transformation part of my Perfect Sage State.'

It would not be an instant process unfortunately, it was a territory yet unexplored by Shiki so it would take time to develop, Tsunade and Orochimaru's research into the White Zetsu might help though. Leaving a soul clone to work on it, he moved on to the second task.

Developing a new and better Curse Mark was comparatively simple for Shiki since not only was he intimately aware of all the workings of the Curse Marks, he also had the experience of working with them before.

'Unfortunately, this won't provide a means for me to get stronger. It will instead be a way for my subordinates to benefit from the sage power I've attained through the Perfect Sage State.'

'The functions would be quite similar, and just better but with a few additional effects to further enched the mark's usefulness and make it applicable to anyone.'

'Depending on the compatibility, the power the user is able to draw from it changes but repeated use can increase even the lowest of compatibilities and unlike Orochimaru's imperfect version, mine won't kill someone due to a low compatibility rate.'

And so Shiki got to work. Even if he was in familiar territory, it would still take time and effort to complete this but once he was done, Mugetsu would receive a considerable power boost and its members would also benefit from some of the new Mark's passive effects . . .

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