"These are Hashirama cells."
The Root operative held out a test tube filled with pale green nutrient solution. Inside, a small piece of flesh floated slowly, suspended in the liquid. Even through the glass, Kenji could sense the vibrant life force contained within.
His Magnet Release puppet accepted the tube, examining the cells with its sensory capabilities. After confirming their vitality, it spoke, "Is there more?"
"That's already enough," the Root ninja said stiffly. "The cells are extremely precious. This amount is sufficient for your experiments."
"No. It's not."
The puppet's tone left absolutely no room for negotiation. When dealing with Root operatives, you couldn't show weakness. They only respected strength and leverage. Anything less and they'd walk all over you.
The Root ninja stared at the puppet for a long moment, clearly weighing his options. The Magnet Release puppet simply stared back, iron sand gathering subtly around its feet.
Finally, the Root ninja's jaw clenched. "Wait here."
He turned and left quickly. When he returned several minutes later, he carried another test tube containing Hashirama cells.
"You'd better not disappoint Danzō-sama," he warned as he set down the tube.
The puppet ignored him completely. It took both samples and placed them inside the enlarged abdominal cavity of a second puppet standing nearby, a rotund construct that looked almost comical with its bulging stomach.
A few seconds later, that transport puppet vanished with a faint spatial distortion.
The design was one of Kenji's more practical creations. He'd embedded Senju clan cells into its core, although it couldn't use Wood Release, it got the massive chakra reserves the Senju bloodline was famous for. That chakra powered the Flying Thunder God seal array built into its body, allowing it to teleport objects between marked locations.
After months of intense study, he had finally managed to learn the Flying Thunder God Technique. Well, "learn" might be generous. His version was clunky compared to what Minato could do. Where the Yellow Flash could teleport instantly mid-combat, he needed about ten or more seconds of preparation and concentration for each jump.
Ten seconds of standing still, channeling chakra, and praying nobody interrupted him.
Not exactly combat-viable.
But for transporting materials between his workshop and Root's facility? It worked perfectly. Better than summoning techniques, which required living contracts and could be traced.
The fact that he could use Flying Thunder God at all proved he had at least some spatial talent. The rest was just practice. Thousands of hours of practice until the technique became instinctive. Maybe in a few years, he'd be able to match Minato's speed.
Yeah. Sure. Maybe.
The transport puppet materialized in a hidden cave on the outskirts of Konoha. This was Kenji's real workshop, the place where he did his research away from prying eyes.
He'd moved operations here shortly after being able to use the Flying Thunder God. Working from his house had become too risky, especially now that Danzō knew what he was capable of. The old war hawk might be cooperating for now, but trust wasn't part of their arrangement.
Besides, he was under no illusions about how his ambush had succeeded.
Danzō had underestimated him. Simple as that. The man had viewed him as a jonin with unusual puppet techniques, nothing more. Certainly not a threat capable of turning Root operatives into corpses within seconds. That arrogance, combined with Danzō's lack of detailed intelligence about his capabilities, had created the opening he needed.
But if they'd met face-to-face in direct confrontation? With Danzō fully prepared and aware of his abilities? The outcome would've been very different. The old man hadn't survived decades of shinobi politics by being weak. He had combat experience Kenji couldn't match. He had resources and personnel that made Kenji's operation look like a child's science project.
No, the ambush had worked because of surprise and misinformation. Nothing more. He had to remember that.
He retrieved the test tubes from the transport puppet's storage compartment. One tube went immediately into a specially designed scroll meant for preserving cellular samples. His personal collection, insurance in case something went wrong with the main experiments.
The second tube's contents got transferred into a specialized tank.
Several similar tanks lined the wall of the cave workshop, each containing floating tissue samples suspended in nutrient solutions, different cells he'd collected over time. The pale green liquid circulated slowly through each tank, maintaining optimal conditions for cellular viability.
"Danzō really is willing to invest," he muttered, watching the Hashirama cells begin dividing inside the tank.
The cooperation had started with blackmail and threats, but since then, Danzō had been almost absurdly accommodating. Chakra-conductive metal? Provided. Specialized nutrient solutions that cost more than most jonin made in a year? Delivered. Forbidden technique scrolls that should've been locked in the Hokage's vault? Handed over without hesitation.
His hunger for power was, in its own twisted way, more honest than his patriotic speeches. At least greed was straightforward.
In the original timeline, even after Hiruzen had officially shut down Hashirama cell research, Danzō had secretly continued funding Orochimaru's experiments. That obsession with Wood Release ran deep. Now that there was hope of creating functional Wood Release puppets, of course he'd spare no expense.
Kenji turned his attention to the nearly complete puppet body resting on his work table. The frame was finished, all the joints calibrated, the chakra pathways integrated. He'd spent weeks creating a network of chakra-conductive channels throughout the puppet's body, replacing the crude wire systems he'd used in earlier models. These channels mimicked the chakra circulatory system of a living body, allowing for much more efficient energy distribution.
All that remained was integrating the Wood Release core once the Hashirama cells matured enough.
He set the puppet aside and pulled a scroll from the storage cabinet beneath his desk. A name stood out at the top when he unrolled it:
Edo Tensei.
He had been studying it obsessively whenever he had spare time. The technique was brilliant in a horrifying sort of way. It created bodies from sacrifices, bound souls from the Pure Land into those bodies, and gave the caster complete control over the resurrected. But the really interesting part was how it generated chakra.
Edo Tensei bodies converted ambient natural energy directly into chakra, giving them functionally infinite reserves. That was the key innovation he had been trying to replicate in his puppets.
If he could crack that particular secret, his puppets would never run out of chakra again.
Time passed in a blur of research and experimentation.
True to Kenji's prediction, Danzō seemed eager to accelerate the Wood Release puppet project. The village stopped assigning Kenji missions entirely.
He appreciated the freedom but knew it came with expectations. Danzō wanted results, and soon. The man's patience had limits.
So aside from occasionally taking out-of-village assignments when he needed to clear his head and remember what sunlight looked like, he spent nearly all his time in the cave workshop. Cultivating cells, refining puppet designs, studying Edo Tensei, and slowly piecing together the next generation of his combat platforms.
Some months after receiving the Hashirama cells, Kenji finally completed his first major breakthrough.
He stood in the center of his workshop. Floating above his palm was a diamond-shaped crystal that emitted a soft white light. The new Swift Release puppet core, created by combining principles from the Four Symbols Seal with the natural energy conversion method used in Edo Tensei.
"Let's see if this actually works."
He embedded the core into the chest cavity of his newest Swift Release puppet. This one was a massive upgrade from previous models. Where his earlier Swift Release puppet had been a crude, undersized thing that barely functioned, this new version looked almost human.
The puppet took the form of a middle-aged man with an unshaven face and sharp eyes. A standard ANBU short sword was strapped across its back. The construction was seamless, each joint precisely calibrated, the synthetic skin covering the mechanical components almost lifelike.
"Mind Clone Switch Technique."
The moment his consciousness entered the puppet, its eyes lit up with an inner glow. He guided it into the training chamber he'd carved out of the cave's back section.
Then he moved.
The puppet blurred. It crossed the ten-meter training room in less than a second. He pushed it harder, weaving between training posts, executing turns that should've been impossible at that velocity.
The puppet responded perfectly. No lag, hesitation, or sudden chakra interruptions like his old models used to suffer.
"Much better," Kenji said through the puppet's mouth.
He ran diagnostics through the mental link connecting his consciousness to the puppet. The results were incredible.
Speed was up thirty percent compared to the old Swift Release puppet. The new core's direct natural energy conversion eliminated the need for nutrient solution circulation through pipes and pumps, reducing weight and mechanical complexity. Chakra molding speed had increased by twenty percent. Individual cell energy density was forty percent higher, giving the puppet substantially more total chakra capacity. And the optimized chakra flow from the sealing array meant everything operated more efficiently.
It was a qualitative leap forward. His older puppets had always been limited by insufficient chakra reserves. They could fight hard for short bursts, but extended combat would drain them dry. This new model with its natural energy conversion could theoretically fight indefinitely.
After confirming the Swift Release puppet's stability through several more tests, he returned his attention to the tank containing the Hashirama cells.
Through the transparent glass, he could see the tissue had grown substantially. What had started as a small chunk of flesh was now a mass nearly the size of an adult human, pulsing slowly in the nutrient solution. Pale green energy surrounded it, and the flesh itself seemed to breathe, expanding and contracting rhythmically as if alive.
"Unbelievable," Kenji said quietly, studying the growth. "The First Hokage's been dead for decades, and his cells still have this much vitality."
He could feel it even from outside the tank. The sheer power contained in that mass of tissue was extreme, far beyond what any normal human possessed. This was the bloodline that had allowed Hashirama to fight Madara to a standstill.
A thought occurred to him, not for the first time.
"How did Hashirama die anyway? The records say he died of exhaustion after the First Great War, but that doesn't make sense. Not with this kind of vitality. Was he assassinated? Did someone poison him? Or did he just burn himself out using too much chakra?"
The mystery nagged at him, but there was no way to know for sure. The records from that era were spotty at best, and anyone who knew the truth was long dead.
He shook off the speculation and focused on what mattered.
"One more week, maybe less. Then I can extract what I need and create the Wood Release core. After that..."
He trailed off, staring at the cultivation tank.