Results and Shiki's Absence

Currently, Shiki was wondering whether injecting the S-Grade Zetsu Serum into himself was a good idea.

Theoretically, he was more than capable of weathering the changes and had the necessary body control to suppress unwanted mutations but he still wasn't quite sure.

After a couple more hours of pondering though, he finally made a decision.

'Okay then, if worst comes to worst, I do have a backup for supporting the change, even if its a costly one but still, it means not all will be lost even if the serum goes out of control so . . . I guess I'll just do it.'

After psyching himself up, Shiki strapped himself into a table with Aion monitoring what was going on and gave it the order to administer the serum to his body.

Mere moments after it was done, Shiki's skin started to rapidly turn the Zetsus' white color and shortly afterwards, tumor like protrusions started to for making his skin bulge in several places as the reaction lost control.

At the point when the change nearly turned him into a wriggling mass of white flesh, Shiki finally gave up trying to bring the change back to his control the normal way and resigned himself to doing it through the costly one.

'Sure hope this works and if it doesn't, at least I won't be around to feel bad about the waste of resources.' He jokingly thought to himself despite the danger he was in.

The backup plan was the Corpse Flesh Jutsu he learned after making the contract to become a budding Shinigami. It used Pure Souls to refine his flesh and Shiki was hoping that it would solve his current problem.

Truth be told, souls were a precious and finite resource and plundering the cycle of life had consequences, consequences he hadn't felt yet due to the relative small scale of his soul theft, at least when compared to the cycle itself but Shiki was clear he could not keep going as he is forever.

As such, souls were one of the few resources that was actually finite to Shiki, so he held back on their use when he felt it was not critical.

The main reason he had never before used the Corpse Flesh Jutsu other than to test it was due to the fact he felt that his current physical body did not require further upgrades to the point he was willing to take such a high cost.

Now though, Shiki's life was on the line and he cared more about it than any number of souls so he immediately activated the jutsu once he realized there was no way to bring the transformation back under control.

He only hoped the strengthening would be enough to weather the change and stabilize the transformation process induced by the S-Grade Zetsu Serum.

Thankfully, Shiki's theory was right.

As the souls started flowing into his deformed and growing flesh, it started to cropress itself back into Shiki's original shape well . . . almost.

After burning through 50% of his soul reserves, hundreds of souls, the transformation was finally complete and SHiki had to admit, his new appearance brought him no small amount of shock.

With the ability to change his physical shape that he gained from Zetsu's unique transformation ability, Shiki would be able to take his old shape but now, he had no need to pay any particular attention to his disguise when he appeared as the Reaper.

This was due to the fact that, despite a very minor resemblance, almost impossible to notice, Shiki now looked completely different than before.

Snow white hair, marble white skin, shining violet eyes without pupils that shone with mysterious power and coral like horns . . .

'I look utterly like an Otsutsuki . . . Looks like Tsuna-nee and Orochimaru truly managed to distill the essence of the Divine Tree from the Zetsus but . . . without my already extensive modifications that brought me closer to the Otsutsuki lineage, this change would not have happened.' Shiki pondered.

'The serum was only the final trigger, the last piece of the puzzle, not the cause for this entire transformation . . . ' He concluded.

'As proof, other than the Zetsu like abilities I've gained, my power has risen far too much for this to be the result of the serum alone. Even with the boost from the Corpse Flesh Jutsu, the difference should not be this much.'

'In any case, I'm ever closer to the levels of power only a true Otsutsuki possesses and, thanks to this transformation, I feel like the bottleneck in my Perfect Sage Ste is loosening . . . I may be able to finally achieve the Six paths Sage Mode and combine it with my abilities soon.'

'It seems my Byakugan also received a colossal boost to its power. It now seems more like an Otsutsuki Byakugan rather than just a powerful Hyuga's.' Shiki figured.

Now, his White Eye of the Kagura could peer into peoples' minds, their face and spacetime itself.

Needless to say, the procedure was a resounding success and Shiki now needed time to meditate on his Senjutsu in order to try and break through that final barrier so, after changing his appearance, he went to say his temporary goodbyes to everyone since the seclusion might actually take a while.

As Shiki removed himself further from the world however, his closest people outside Mugetsu, the ones that did not know of his activities but knew he had soul clones filling in for him in the village, started to miss his presence and wondering where and what he was doing when he so often disappeared.

Currently, the Konoha Eleven were doing a joint training under Kurenai and Guy's supervision. This was mostly the result of some more motivated individuals grabbing their team members out for a training session.

Shiki's proteges like Hinata who had brought along her sister, Naruto and Sasuke were the ones that initially meant to train together. Tenten joined in since she was put under Hinata's care by Shiki.

Seeing that however, Sakura and Ino who were more under Tsunade's tutelage than Shiki's asked to join in as well.

Kurenai, who often supervised the training Hinata and Hanabi came to do the same to the larger scale gathering.

Catching wind of the event from Tenten, Lee came running to join which alerted Guy who dragged Neji against his will to join in as well.

And as a reaction to that, not wanting her teammates to be the only ones left out, Ino called in Shikamaru and Choji thus creating the massive group they had now.

"Hey Hinata, do you know where Shiki's been?" Naruto asked.

"No, he's been busy lately, only coming by very rarely these days." She sadly replied.

"Yeah what's up with that?" Sakura chimed in from the side.

"You mean what is he doing?" Ino asked for confirmation.

"Probably something we're not supposed to know." Sasuke answered.

"True. But aren't you curious Sasuke-kun?" Sakura asked.

"Well . . . I mean, I wouldn't mind knowing." Sasuke replied.

"What are you kids going on about?" Kurenai interrupted.

"No slacking since it's a rare opportunity for all of you to be in the village to train. And I'm sure Shiki wouldn't appreciate you all poking your noses into his business." She warned.

"Come on Kurenai sensei!" Naruto interjected.

"Yeah, do you know what he's doing?" Ino asked.

"I don't and it's none of my business." Kurenai replied.

"You say that but I've caught you looking around for Shiki-nii-sama." Hanabi suddenly spoke.

Kurenai imperceptibly blushed and denied.

"You're mistaken."

"Hmph!" Was all she got from the little Hyuga.

After that small interlude the training continued and the difference between those mentored by Shiki and the others showed.

Naruto, Sasuke and Hinata were head and shoulders above the rest while Hanabi who was still quite young and Tenten who had joined the group later were lagging a bit behind.

Ino and Sakura were slightly worse off since they only got some tutoring from Tsunade and a little side help form Shiki but they were still better off than the others in raw prowess.

However, there were exceptions the growth of his peers had driven Lee to a much higher point that in the original series, the lack of the injury he would have received in his fight against Gaara greatly helped as well.

Still the others were still better than they were in the original since they were driven by theirs peers' success as well, even if not as much as the hot blooded Lee.

By the end of the day, they finally finished their little session and Shiki's group, Kurenai included went off resuming their talk about Shiki and what he might be doing when he was not around.

After some back and forth, Naruto gave an actually smart suggestion.

"We're not gonna find anything just talking, dattebayo!" He exclaimed.

"Than what do you suggest?" Sasuke sked.

"Let's ask someone who knows, tebayo.." Naruto replied.

"Right! Tsunade-sama probably knows!" Sakura added.

And so, the group decided to go and bother Tsunade's soul clone in the Hokage office.

'Am I really going along with this?' Kurenai asked herself as she followed the kids.

'I'm just watching them to make sure they don't get into trouble, yes, that's it." She convinced herself of her motives.

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P.a.t.r.e.o.n is officially up!

The link is: https://www.p.a.t.r.e.o.n.com/lusoba without the extra dots of course.

You'll get to read up to FOUR week ahead, a full month, but I'll still post here.

There's also my other novel Archon of DanMachi, do check it out!

I would greatly appreciate any support since this is going to be my breadwinner.