"You've started keeping too many secrets, you know that, Naruto?" Sakura crossed her arms and sighed.
"You will find out the identities of the holders eventually," Naruto said. "No point in rushing. Shall we move to the matter at hand, or do you have more questions about the Dominion Mark?"
"Could you do that for me as well?" Ino asked. "Leaving my hair down is fine and all, but I would like the option to have a ponytail as well."
"I don't mind."
"Great," Sakura interjected. "We should do it right now. Here."
Naruto gave Sakura an amused smile before turning back to Ino. "Are you sure? The process of embedding an ability is going to overwhelm you the same way that giving the mark to you did. Since I am manually embedding an ability, it will be much longer as well."
"So …"
"Yep," Sakura nodded. "You will probably lose consciousness within the first minute. I was looking forward to having you squirt embarrassingly in front of everyone here."
"I shall let you know if I want the modification or not, Hokage-sama." Ino ignored Sakura. "I don't have any further questions."
"Sakura? Karin?" Naruto asked, and both of them shook their heads. "Great." He stood up and clapped his hands. "That means we can go look at the new location."
"Where is it?" Ino asked.
"This time, I'm going to keep it to myself," Naruto said. "The only way in and out of there will be through a Flying Raijin seal in my office. Anyone can travel through it, but they will need my permission first. Most of the other rules will be the same as we established before."
"What rules?" Sakura asked, looking at Naruto as he approached them.
"I'll tell you while we are there. Hold on to me."
"Did you learn the Flying Raijin? Aren't you hopeless with seals?" Sakura asked, but she still placed her palm on his shoulder. Ino also looked curious about his answer as she placed her hand on her other shoulder. As for Karin, she sneakily grabbed his hand.
"I am still hopeless with seals. So I had to do that brute-force training with my clones. They have been practicing non-stop for almost a month now," Naruto said as they finally disappeared from his office after ten seconds. "Sadly, it still takes me a while to locate the anchor and teleport to it."
"You can use the Dominion Marks as anchors…" Ino's eyes widened in realization. "I was wondering how you were able to teleport to me."
"Yes, I can do that. Getting that particular trick to work took more than a week and inconvenienced Karin a lot. Anyway, welcome to the hollowed-out area where the research center will be built."
Naruto spread his arms and gestured to the surroundings. The only sources of light were rocks that seemed to be on fire littered around the perimeter of the roughly rectangular area that, at first glance, seemed more than five times the size of the main administration building at the foot of the Hokage Mountain that was the heart of Konoha. Ten of Naruto's clones were still busy as they used Earth Release to increase the height of the ceiling even further.
"Did your clones do all this? Sakura asked as she walked toward one of the pillars and sensed it with her chakra. Her eyes widened as she felt the massive amount of chakra inside the pillar that seemed far denser than the usual rock.
"Yeah, they've been at it since this morning. I had them use Earth Release to compress all of the mass into these pillars while also infusing tons of chakra into them. The frame of the structure should be finished in a few days, at which point, Ino can coordinate with the Shikamaru to ring in the builders and start working on the construction."
"Same rules as before?" Ino asked.
"Some changes. Once inside, they are not allowed to leave before the project is finished. I will leave a few clones inside to monitor their progress and handle the logistics. Whatever resources they require, they can communicate with my clones, at which point Shikamaru will arrange everything, and my clones will transport everything inside."
"Understandable," Ino nodded. "I assume that I will still be wiping their memories once the project is over."
"Naturally. I'm not taking any risks. Once all of this is done, we will move in the displaced scientists and researchers who were transferred away from the Scientific Ninja Tools department."
"Hey, Naruto. What about power? Or air … " Sakura asked. This place is vacuum-sealed from the outside by chakra-reinforced rocks. While it is as close to a hidden, impenetrable fortress as possible, how are we going to handle those two things?"
"Seals," Naruto said. "Wind Release seals for air and Lightning Release seals for power. We don't have the necessary knowledge to reproduce our technology to work on chakra, so we are still dependent on electricity, but Wind and Lightning release seals will take care of all of those issues."
"Eventually, they will start sucking away the chakra in the walls," Sakura said. "That will compromise the structural integrity."
"I am still looking for a permanent solution where they will run on natural energy, but for the time being, we will manually infuse those seals with our chakra."
"The Uzumaki clan had such seals. Ones that could be powered directly by natural energy," Karin mentioned.
"I know. The village barrier is one such seal. Ino knows best that no one infuses any chakra into it."
"That's true. It only requires chakra when we want to interface with it to get information about the village. In all its years of operation, the barrier has never required any chakra infusions or maintenance."
"But they are gone," Sakura said. "Their information and knowledge with them. Unless you use Edo Tensei to revive one of them and interrogate them …" Sakura trailed off, "…are you?"
"Of course not. I have other plans for that knowledge. You can put the thought of an upgraded system in the back of your mind for now. We will run this whole place with the usual seals that require regular infusions of chakra."
"All right," Sakura agreed. "How long do you think this is going to take? Before everything is functional?"
"Our estimates for the original research center were close to two months for full completion," Ino answered instead. "But if Naruto is going to help handle the logistics, we should be done with the construction work within a month or so. At that point, the personnel can be brought in, and we will be fully functioning within a week after that."
"How will the security work in that case?" Sakura asked again. "Are you going to give this Dominion Mark to all those scientists and researchers?"
"Of course not," Naruto snorted. "It is not some kind of candy I will give out to just about anyone. The researchers will all have annual assignments here. That is one of the reasons that this place is so large. Because we will also house them here. At the end of the year, if they want, they will get a month-long vacation. Ino will extract their memories of what they did here before they leave. And when they return, their memories will be given back so that they can continue where they left off."
"That sounds horrible," Sakura looked horrified. "You are treating those people like slaves … Worse than slaves."
"Slaves aren't paid. They will earn enough to make their sacrifices more than justified. And if they want, they can quit at any time, without anything holding them here. You three are the ones who will be working on the main projects anyway. They will all be glorified assistants."
"I don't think I'm very happy with this, Naruto," Sakura frowned.
"How about we talk about it again when we start rehiring the displaced scientists? The three of you and Shikamaru will be sitting with me when we invite our people to join this facility. You can give me your input once you hear what they have to say about the offer. Okay?"
"I guess …" Sakura nodded. "We don't have any such restrictions, right? I want to be home in time for dinner with my daughter every day."
"Naturally," Naruto nodded. "You simply need to talk to one of my clones, and they will teleport you back to my office. Plus, you always have the option to connect with me directly through telepathy."
As Naruto clarified some more things to them, he took the time to get their input regarding the resources that they might need. The actual requirements will be finalized with Shikamaru once they start talking to the contractors regarding the interior construction.
Their meeting lasted more than two hours as they threw quite a few ideas back and forth between each other and established a clearer image of what the Research Center would become. It was already midnight by the time Naruto and the three women returned to his office, and they all departed to their respective homes.
***
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