Developing Jutsu

The group moved quickly through the forest until they entered a stone forest. There were large boulders, rock spires, and gravel pits. It was a truly unique terrain for Natsume who had only seen forest for her whole life so far. The ability to cover your legs with chakra to make your steps nimble and silent was crucial to being a shinobi.

The group moved quickly until they reached an outcropping near the predicted area. One of the top-ranked warriors summoned a flock of birds to scout the area. Fortunately, he had many bird species that would normally be found in this rocky area. They scattered in multiple directions and the group waited in silence. The scouts had discovered this caravan on its way from the Daimyo's castle, so it may take a long time to arrive.

The Uchiha waited in silence. Everyone's alert was at the maximum as they watched their surroundings. Since the caravan could appear at any moment, no one slept. This would be unsustainable for most, but everyone was a trained shinobi with at least mid-rank chakra reserves. Combined with war rations, they could stay awake for days. Natsume took this opportunity to go over her memories.

Despite committing everything in her inheritance to memory, actually processing the information contained took effort. Connecting fragments of knowledge together, formulating new ideas, and integrating her personal knowledge with the knowledge from the memories. Everything seemed to start from the birth of an Uzumaki clan member, Naruto. However, despite carrying the name of a powerful clan, he did not have any political support.

The reason for this seemed to be due to the decline of the Uzumaki and Senju clans in Konoha. Natsume felt that this was very ironic. The two clan's that propelled the ninja world into the organized shinobi system and the clan strong enough to start a village on its own were ultimately wiped out from the world.

Compared to the Uchiha who still had some genius members, the Senju practically lost all surviving members except for one. As for the Uzumaki, their incredible sealing techniques were almost completely lost. Following this train of thought, Natsume saw a moment in her memories. The boy stood in front of an old toad. Between the toad and the boy was an unraveled scroll. The scroll's details were vividly portrayed in front of her.

The formula on the scroll was a very detailed and compact fuinjutsu. She committed the formula to memory and searched her memories to figure out what the formula was for. Several scenes flashed past her eyes as she learned more and more about the complex fuinjutsu. Soon Natsume discovered that the formula she saw was actually a key used to strengthen or weaken a fuinjutsu called the Four Symbols Seal. This was a deconstruction of one of the Uzumaki's ultimate sealing techniques, the Eight Trigrams Sealing Style.

Unfortunately, no matter how much she scanned through her memories, there were only fragments of formula and rituals used to lay the completed seal. Although the information was incomplete, it was not useless. As long as she studied the formula of the key, she could reverse engineer a similar seal. Although the Uzumaki clan was considered to have the strongest fuinjutsu, it did not mean the other clans had nothing.

In the Uchiha archives, there were scrolls that contained various sealing techniques in the low- and mid-rank categories. Additionally, there were many random unranked techniques that were looted from the enemy throughout the years. If Natsume spent some time analyzing and learning from them, she could potentially invent a seal based on the Four Symbols Seal. With access to a powerful fuinjutsu, she could quickly propel herself to top-rank before Madara and Hashirama matured.

Although it seemed like a short time, four days had unknowingly passed while she was sifting through her memories. She had no search function and could only go through each of them one at a time. The process was also non-linear, and she would frequently go back over the same memories. This was because the nature of the inherited memories were not organized in any way. Some memories would double back on others or even themselves.

Natsume still had many memories to go through, but after four days, the caravan was finally spotted. The Uchiha who had been still for many days stretched and got in their best states. Everyone was prepared to go all out to prevent any leaks. The sound of wheels and hooves could be heard from the distance and all the shinobi body flickered simultaneously. Due to the sharingan, they were able to perfectly synchronize.

However, they soon realized something was wrong as soon as first contact was made. Dozens of enemy shinobi fell, but they only crumpled on the ground like dummies. Before the Uchiha could react, the lifeless puppets struck back at them. Their mouths and hand compartments opened and various hidden weapons laced with poison were shot out. Realizing the situation was abnormal, the Uchiha retreated.

Instead of chasing, the puppets regrouped around the carts. A voice came from within the covered caravans.

"Uchiha clan? I see, hah. Interesting."

"Puppets, poison, hidden weapons, so it's the Shirogane clan from the Land of Wind. Is this why the caravan was delayed for so long?" One of the top ranked Uchiha replied. Although the possibility of the clan working for the Land of Fire existed, based on the fact that the puppets were manufactured from the bodies of the Fire Daimyo's personal guard, it was safe to assume that wasn't the case.

"It seems the Uchiha had the same plan as us. However, you were too slow." The sensors of the group were scanning the surroundings and the carts to find the source of the puppet masters, but they had no luck. This was the annoying thing about the Shirogane clan, they excelled in hiding behind the scenes. Fortunately, the puppets on scene were low grade, otherwise the Uchiha would be more worried about a fight breaking out.

"Since you are already here, I propose a temporary pact. All we want are the bodies of the fallen Senju." A different voice sounded out from one of the puppets which held a more commanding tone.