Chapter 241: Controlled Resources

Tonbo entered the chamber holding Konoha's Scroll of Seals under the authority of the Acting Hokage.

This time, Koharu and Homura did not stop him. They only warned him not to neglect the duties of the office while studying. The Tonbo teaching Konohamaru and the other children was a Shadow Clone; the original intended to use the access he had finally gained.

His offer to revive Hiruzen had been a deception. Impure World Reincarnation could not summon a soul trapped inside the Shinigami, so the Third remained beyond its reach. If Konohamaru had accepted, however, Tonbo would not have lacked alternatives. A genjutsu master could manufacture a convincing meeting.

Tonbo usually maintained a boundary against using such methods on people who were not enemies. The boundary was flexible. If necessity demanded it, he could move it.

He unrolled the complete Scroll of Seals.

The document was not one continuous lesson. Layers of protective script separated categories, and each technique carried warnings, annotations, and corrections added by successive Hokage. Some formulas had been prohibited because the user would die. Others endangered the village simply by existing outside controlled custody. Tonbo moved through the seals with the authority encoded for the current office.

When he once learned the Bringer-of-Darkness Technique, the village permitted him to examine only that entry. Today no one stood ready to close the scroll after a single technique. Tonbo felt generous toward himself. He wanted everything.

Multiple Shadow Clone and Impure World Reincarnation drew his attention first.

Multiple Shadow Clone required little explanation. Tonbo already knew the ordinary Shadow Clone and had spent more than a decade developing ninjutsu. One reading was enough to understand the difference. If Naruto could master the forbidden version from a stolen scroll while still an Academy failure, Tonbo would have retired in shame for finding it difficult.

Impure World Reincarnation was another matter.

"This is only a framework."

Tobirama's formula described how to use a summoning technique, a living vessel, and material from the deceased to call a soul from the Pure Land. It did not guarantee that the reincarnated body possessed the person's original strength. In its archived form, the technique could summon a dead soul to speak, bind it, and achieve little more.

The overwhelming version that later fought wars owed its power to Orochimaru's and Kabuto's refinements.

They had improved the quality of the sacrificial vessel, rebuilt the dead body closer to its living strength, and developed control tags capable of suppressing the summoned personality. Kabuto later pushed the connection far enough to reproduce bloodline abilities and combat instincts that Tobirama's bare framework never promised.

"They truly are the most talented common-born researchers in the shinobi world, aside from me. Developing this frame into an army deserves admiration."

That did not mean either man surpassed Tobirama. The phrase *summon a soul from the Pure Land* concealed a body of knowledge no ordinary researcher could reproduce. Cells served as the medium connecting identity, corpse, vessel, and a realm inaccessible to living senses. The process resembled using one fragment of flesh to call a ghost from the underworld, yet the material itself held almost no obvious power.

The space-time principles captivated Tonbo.

Every summoning technique crossed space. Edo Tensei extended that connection toward the Pure Land, making it an extreme expression of space-time ninjutsu. Urashiki and the other Ōtsutsuki possessed spatial abilities. If Tonbo wanted a defense, he needed to understand every route by which chakra could locate and cross an otherwise unreachable boundary.

He moved to Flying Thunder God.

Minato's technique was even more intricate. A user needed advanced sealing knowledge, extraordinarily fast neural reactions, and an affinity for space-time ninjutsu. With all three, Minato and Tobirama could teleport freely between prepared marks. Without them, trained shinobi such as Shiranui Genma required a three-person formation and rigid coordination to produce the same transition.

The scroll contained hundreds of forbidden techniques: Reaper Death Seal, Orochimaru's Eight Branches Technique, dangerous transformations, sacrificial seals, and methods that consumed bodies or minds. Nearly all carried severe side effects. Even a genius would need years to learn them, and far longer to master more than a few.

Reaper Death Seal demanded the user's life and bound souls inside the Shinigami. Eight Branches reshaped the body into an enormous serpent at the cost of changes no ordinary shinobi could survive. Other entries offered strength through shortened lifespan, divided consciousness, destroyed chakra pathways, or preparations that required victims. The scroll preserved them because a future emergency might justify the cost, not because every preserved technique deserved use.

Multiple Shadow Clone remained the crude exception. It demanded enough chakra to sustain every body and a mind capable of enduring the memories when the copies dispersed.

Tonbo found the Spiritualization Technique he had once requested and smiled.

"Being Hokage is excellent."

The office would not be his forever, but the knowledge he accessed during it could remain. The scroll offered not one research path but an apparently endless supply.

He had materials, formulas, captured knowledge, and now forbidden techniques. What he still lacked were test subjects.

That thought sounded familiar. Tonbo dismissed the repetition and kept reading.

Later, in an isolated field, he formed a seal.

"Multiple Shadow Clone Jutsu!"

Dozens of Tonbos appeared around him.

They filled the field in rows, each carrying the same curiosity and the same impatience to begin. The division spread Tonbo's chakra thin enough that he felt the reduction immediately, but every clone remained capable of reading, testing seals, and returning what it learned.

His chakra still fell short of Naruto's absurd reserve. When his evolving body reached the proper level, he expected that difference to shrink. For the present, several dozen copies were enough.

"You study the Summoning Technique. You take Flying Thunder God. You continue Heart Steel. You work on Spiritualization. Everyone else advances Forced Execution."

The clones separated with their assignments.

Tonbo had already tested the effect of receiving their memories. His powerful spiritual talent and strengthened brain withstood the returning information. Multiple Shadow Clone gave him the shinobi world's most useful research shortcut: he could multiply the hours spent on ninjutsu and still let the original body return to the Hokage's desk.

While he processed village documents, the other Tonbos worked.

A cipher-division shinobi entered the office.

"Report. Sunagakure has sent a peace proposal."

Tonbo opened the scroll.

Sand blamed an erroneous judgment caused by Orochimaru, a rogue shinobi of Konoha who had impersonated and murdered the Kazekage. It described Sunagakure as another victim, requested reconciliation, and proposed restoring the alliance.

The language avoided responsibility so completely that Sand almost sounded entitled to compensation from Konoha.

"Who says Sunagakure has no capable people?" Tonbo said. "This is excellent political work. They place every crime on Orochimaru, make themselves victims, request cooperation, and even provide us with a way to save face. The excuse is absurd, but it is usable."

The proposal never denied that Sand shinobi entered Konoha. It described them as forces misdirected by a false Kazekage and suggested that punishing the entire village would reward the missing-nin who manipulated both sides. That framing let Sand withdraw without publicly admitting defeat and let Konoha negotiate without appearing to pardon an unprovoked invasion.

Sand lacked top-level military strength after the Kazekage's death. Its diplomats remained formidable.

Konoha was also weak and could not afford a genuine war with Wind Country. Orochimaru had already taken the blame, and Sand's proposal offered a public route back to peace. Tonbo intended to accept—but not without showing enough firmness that other nations would not mistake restraint for retreat.

"Shikaku, draft our response. Restoration of the alliance requires concessions from Wind Country. Demand access to its controlled oil trade. In return, Fire Country will open selected controlled resources under equivalent terms."

Oil was a foundation for industry and an important component of shinobi incendiary weapons. Wind Country guarded its exports except under exceptional circumstances.

Fire Country could offer rare timber, medicinal plants, and manufactured goods whose export was also restricted. The exchange would not be charity. Each side would expose a resource it ordinarily used as leverage, while Konoha gained access to the one material most difficult to replace from its own territory.

Tonbo's responsibility was to secure Konoha's interests. Reciprocal access would make the demand easier for Sand to accept, and Fire Country's abundance ensured the exchange favored it. Wind would compensate for a shortage; Fire would raise an already high ceiling. Equal quantities did not mean equal strategic value.

That imbalance was the purpose of controlled-resource policy.

Tonbo returned the proposal to Shikaku. Sand had offered peace. Konoha would set its price.