The Yin Seal, Complete!

Three in the morning.

The Senju estate's backyard.

Tsunade sat cross-legged beneath the old locust tree in the courtyard, her eyes closed.

At the center of her forehead, a faint diamond-shaped outline was slowly beginning to glow.

It flickered.

It had been like this for three days.

Three days ago, the Chakra stored in her Yin Seal had reached a critical point.

According to Mito, it was a sign that "the mark was about to form."

Chakra surged around the point on her forehead, compressing and solidifying.

Again and again.

With each cycle, the diamond-shaped outline grew clearer.

Tsunade focused her awareness inward, concentrating completely.

She could "see" the Chakra pool in her forehead.

Months of accumulation had filled that reservoir, aided by her upgraded body and its enhanced capacity.

It was full.

Completely full.

The last trace of free-floating Chakra was pressed into the pool.

"Click."

It wasn't a real sound.

It was something she sensed in her mind,

like the final piece of a puzzle slipping perfectly into place.

The light on her forehead suddenly blazed.

The hazy diamond sharpened and took solid form.

A deep-purple diamond mark settled firmly at the center of Tsunade's forehead.

The Strength of a Hundred Seal.

It was complete.

The Strength of a Hundred Seal that she had expected to take a year to form.

Now it had fully formed in less than half a year!

Tsunade slowly opened her eyes.

The first thing she noticed:

Lightness.

The feeling that something had been constantly drained from her body for the past year was gone.

In its place came a sense of fullness, like a long-dry riverbed filling with water again.

She looked down at her hand.

A faint sheen moved across her skin, almost invisible to the naked eye.

But she could feel it.

Every cell was vibrating at a low frequency.

Vitality.

It was the outward sign of heightened cellular activity.

"First, the baseline."

Tsunade stood and flexed her joints.

She didn't release the Yin Seal. She remained in her normal state.

Clenching her right fist, she lightly punched the training post in the backyard, a post as thick as a bowl.

She barely put any force into it.

Bang—

The post snapped in the middle.

Its upper half spun through the air and plunged into the dirt ten meters away.

The break was smooth, the wood fibers torn cleanly apart.

Tsunade glanced at her fist.

No pain.

Not even a jolt.

Before, the same amount of force would have left a fistprint at most.

"Ten percent Hashirama Cells activity," she muttered. "It comes with benefits after all. Even my strength has increased this much."

The improvement to Tsunade's base physique alone was already a transformation.

But that wasn't today's focus.

Tsunade took a deep breath.

Her hands formed a seal.

"Yin Seal—Release!"

The diamond mark on her forehead lit up, and deep-purple lines spread outward like vines.

They ran over her temples and cheekbones, down her neck, and across her entire body.

In an instant, Tsunade changed.

The feeling was hard to describe.

If before, the riverbed had filled with water, now the dam gates had opened and unleashed a flood.

Every cell in her body was soaked in vast amounts of Chakra and brought to life.

Her cellular activity surged from ten percent straight to its limit.

One hundred percent.

Complete.

Hashirama State!

Tsunade looked down at the purple lines flowing over her arm.

Beneath her skin, she could faintly see glowing pathways.

She drew the kunai at her waist.

Without hesitation, she slashed the back of her left hand.

Blood welled up.

One second.

The muscle fibers at the edges of the wound began to move, drawing together fast enough to see.

New skin grew over them.

Two seconds.

The bleeding stopped.

Three seconds.

The wound vanished completely, without even a scar.

The new skin matched the surrounding skin perfectly.

Tsunade stared at the back of her hand for three seconds.

"...Absurd."

That was her assessment of herself.

A kunai-deep cut had healed completely in three seconds.

That rate of recovery was beyond Medical Ninjutsu.

It was sheer life force overwhelming everything.

Not enough.

After a moment's thought, Tsunade walked to the courtyard wall and found a fist-sized piece of rubble.

She gripped it and brought it down on her left forearm with a crack.

Bone fractured.

A hairline fracture ran through a bone in her left forearm. Pain shot to her brain, and Tsunade's brow twitched, but she made no sound.

Then she watched the injury.

Three seconds. Chakra automatically surged toward the fracture.

Five seconds. The crack in the bone began to close.

Ten seconds. She tried moving the fingers of her left hand. All of them moved freely.

Fifteen seconds. The bone had fully healed, and even the bruising was gone.

A fractured bone. Fifteen seconds.

Tsunade let out a breath.

"What about a complete break? One minute?"

She didn't test it further.

Anything beyond this wouldn't be a "test." It would be self-harm.

Besides, there was another figure she needed to determine first.

The total amount of Chakra stored in the Yin Seal.

Tsunade closed her eyes and turned her awareness inward again.

The diamond mark on her forehead was like a door. Behind it lay a deep-purple "sea."

A sea of Chakra.

She tried to sense its boundaries.

It was deep.

Impossibly deep.

Months of accumulation, combined with Chakra being poured in at ten times the normal rate.

More than a year's worth of Chakra at a normal training pace had been compressed into that tiny diamond mark. This could hardly be called Chakra anymore.

It was a whole ocean of it!

Tsunade made a rough estimate.

At the rate she had been consuming Chakra with the Strength of a Hundred fully released...

"I can maintain the complete state for at least... three hours."

Three hours.

Three hours of passive Hashirama-level power.

What did that mean?

Even the bloodiest battle of the Second Great Ninja War had lasted only two hours from start to finish.

She would need months to replenish it afterward.

But that was more than enough.

Tsunade's thoughts raced. Then she closed her eyes and took a deep breath.

Her training with the Yin Seal was complete.

Now she was going to try something she had wanted to try for a long time but never had!

The next second.

Tsunade's eyes snapped open!

"Eight Gates!"

"Open!!"