Kakuan Entering Society with Bliss-Bringing Hands

At first, Tobirama Senju tried to stop Yanbai from being so utterly shameless.

But later, Tobirama Senju gave up. If he could not stop Yanbai, he would join him.

Because unless he joined Yanbai, Tobirama Senju would never know just how shameless Yanbai could be.

Yanbai's "true face" was painful to behold, so Tobirama Senju decided to learn from him and become just as much of an eyesore.

And so, Tobirama Senju suggested doing to the other Shinobi Clans what Yanbai intended to do to the Uchiha Clan—the Akimichi Clan, the Nara Clan, the Yamanaka Clan, the Sarutobi Clan, the Hyuga Clan, the Inuzuka Clan, the Aburame Clan... and so on.

They would write up a "detailed daily log" for every one of them.

There was just no need to airdrop copies to them as he had to Uchiha Tajima. They should keep the other Shinobi Clans in the dark.

Tobirama Senju's reasoning was that if Yanbai only monitored the Uchiha Clan, their father, Butsuma, would easily notice something was wrong.

But if Yanbai spared none of the Shinobi Clans he could reach, treating every clan equally, the Uchiha Clan would no longer stand out so much.

Yanbai saw no problem with this suggestion, then grinned and declared that, of the five brothers, the two of them were the most alike.

Tobirama Senju silently accepted that assessment.

They would be sneaky little bastards together, pulling one underhanded stunt after another.

Some time later, Tobirama Senju received a large stack of dossiers from Yanbai.

After obtaining Yanbai's permission, Tobirama Senju delivered these dossiers, which recorded the various clans' trivial "private affairs," to their father, Butsuma Senju.

Butsuma Senju sat cross-legged before his desk, his expression grave as he read through the scrolls one by one.

The scrolls were covered in elegant handwriting, recording a vast assortment of bizarre trifles in an appalling level of detail.

Butsuma Senju recognized Yanbai's handwriting.

With a composed expression, Tobirama Senju explained where these scrolls had come from, though he still concealed the matter involving the Uchiha Clan for Yanbai.

Information on almost every Shinobi Clan the birds could spy on had been gathered here.

Yanbai had written the contents of the scrolls in his own words, using the intelligence provided by the birds.

Reading them made Butsuma Senju's brow twitch uncontrollably.

"Year ××, month ×, day ×, × hours and × minutes in the evening. The moon was bright and the stars sparse. In the courtyard of house number ××× in the Akimichi Clan's grounds, Akimichi Matsumaru and his wife, Inaho, were ×××. Because he was too fat, his ××× was too short..."

Butsuma Senju: "..."

"Year ××, month ×, day ×, × hours and × minutes in the daytime. The sun was blazing. In house number ××× in the Nara Clan's grounds, Nara Hiroki's son, Nara Shikashin, had diarrhea. At × hours and × minutes, the shape of his stool was..."

Butsuma Senju: "..."

Nothing was left out. Every bizarre little incident involving members of every clan was densely recorded in the dossiers, right down to their eating, drinking, and bodily functions.

Whose brat had smashed a neighbor's window, whose brat had stolen from the kitchen next door, whose brat had gotten a spanking, whose brat had been beaten to death by a neighbor for being too much of a menace...

Whose wife was having an affair, whose concubine had run away, whose dog had left shit at someone else's doorstep, whose ninja beast had no shame...

The stories from the various Shinobi Clans were bizarre and incoherent, yet even more colorful than the storybooks sold in the capital of the Land of Fire.

Still, not all of the intelligence was useless.

Yanbai had actually drawn maps of their clan grounds, numbered every house, investigated everyone's names, and written down where they lived.

Like an obsessive stalker fan, he had recorded everything everyone in those clan grounds did all day, however many people there were, right down to eating, drinking, and relieving themselves.

He watched his father, Butsuma Senju, maintain that grave expression.

After explaining the material in his hands, Tobirama Senju made his request. "Father, Yanbai has far too much time on his hands. Please arrange some moral instruction for him..."

Butsuma Senju looked solemnly at his son. He understood what Tobirama Senju was implying.

The material in his hands truly was useful for gathering intelligence on other clans, but it also revealed Yanbai's utter lack of morals and shame.

He recalled how Yanbai had swiftly fabricated charges against the Hagoromo Clan, leading to its rapid extermination.

Butsuma Senju understood his son's concerns.

Yanbai was too powerful, too young, and far too lacking in both shame and morals. That was extremely dangerous.

The fear was that Yanbai might grow up into a demon capable of destroying the world.

His eldest son, Hashirama, had been studying Zen Buddhism lately, and Yanbai had always loved following Hashirama around.

Butsuma Senju decided to have Yanbai study Buddhism with Hashirama.

He hoped the Buddhist teachings Hashirama was reading could reform Yanbai, giving him at least a little morality and decency, rather than letting him strike down his own clansmen and protect their enemies at a critical moment.

Butsuma Senju had never worried this much about any of his children's moral character. Yanbai truly was an exception.

He had never thought raising children was so exhausting before.

Ever since Yanbai had started doing whatever he pleased, Butsuma Senju had felt exhausted, both physically and mentally. He was not afraid Yanbai would die; he was afraid Yanbai would stir up trouble.

He wanted to cherish this child, yet feared the boy's "filial devotion" would be the death of him.

When Yanbai heard he was going to study with Hashirama Senju, he was quite happy.

Hashirama Senju was easygoing and saw nothing wrong with his father's proposal.

As a result, once Yanbai joined the brothers' training, the whole atmosphere changed dramatically.

After joining Hashirama Senju's training group, Yanbai finally understood why so many of Hashirama Senju's techniques were related to Buddhism by the time he became the First Hokage.

It was because Hashirama Senju frequently studied Buddhist teachings...

Yanbai did not mind. He could discuss any topic and enjoy doing anything.

Only Yanbai could calmly discuss Buddhism with Hashirama.

The other three brothers could only watch in bewilderment.

When they practiced ninjutsu, only Yanbai and Hashirama Senju could use Wood Release, so Yanbai could connect with Hashirama Senju in that area too, offering him ideas and directions for techniques such as Tree World Advent, Advent of a World of Flowering Trees, Wood Dragon Technique, Wood Human Technique, Wood Release: Hōbi Technique, and Wood Release: Hotei Technique...

Butsuma Senju quietly observed all this and suddenly felt that having Yanbai study morality with Hashirama had been an excellent decision. Recently, even Yanbai's accounts of the other clans' trivial affairs had become much more proper in their wording.

"No wonder my eldest brother would give a technique such a strange name. So that's why..."

Yanbai looked at the scroll in his hands and murmured to himself:

"Kakuan Entering Society with Bliss-Bringing Hands comes from Zen Buddhist terminology. There was a Zen master named Kakuan Shiyuan whose work, Ten Oxherding Pictures Verses, is a celebrated series of paintings handed down through the ages, using oxherding as a metaphor for spiritual cultivation."

"Its contents comprise ten stages: searching for the ox, seeing its tracks, seeing the ox, catching the ox, tending the ox, riding the ox home, forgetting the ox but retaining the self, forgetting both self and ox, returning to the source, and entering society with bliss-bringing hands..."

"Entering society means returning to the mortal world, while extending one's hands means guiding all living beings toward enlightenment..."

"After attaining enlightenment through spiritual cultivation, one returns to the suffering mortal world to deliver and enlighten all living beings, embodying compassion."

And so, several years later, Hashirama Senju created a technique for dealing with tailed beasts: Hokage-Style Sixty-Year-Old Technique: Kakuan Entering Society with Bliss-Bringing Hands.

PS: In Ten Oxherding Pictures, pinyin was used in place of certain characters.