Naruto: Ren the Sealmaster

Sitting in his office at the Barrier Corps headquarters, Ren was reluctantly dealing with some of his accumulated paperwork.

The office was barebones and seemed not lived in. It wasn't decorated at all. Ren didn't bother. He was at the Barrier Corps only once or twice per week, taking all the work and paperwork that piled up while he didn't come to work and finishing it in two to three hours tops.

And that was only when he didn't feel lazy. Nowadays, sometimes he simply sends a shadow clone in his stead. There wasn't a problem with it yet.

The higher-ups did not care as long as the work was done by the end of the week.

The Barrier Corps was a very relaxed and leisure workplace for a ninja village. Ren hadn't regretted joining it yet. If big ol' villains were not going to mess up this world somewhat fiercely in the future, Ren wouldn't have minded spending his life working here.

Ren had been learning seals since he was ten. It has been seven years now and he spent a large portion of his day with his head buried in seal work. He became very good at what he did so the usual seal repairs around Konoha that even a genin from the Barrier Corps could patch up were no big deal for Ren.

And if something important broke, Ren was in a great position because as a fresh chunin, he would never be called. That was a job for a Jonin.

There wasn't much to complain about. The pay was nice and the free time was abundant.

Suddenly, the door to Ren's office flew open and a man in baggy clothes and wearing a red bandana walked in with a small scowl as if he owned the place.

"Something wrong, Kenji?" Ren politely asked, inwardly sighing. He wasn't friends with his co-workers. At best, they were passing acquaintances and that's how Ren liked it.

Kenji was still a genin despite being in his mid-twenties. He was rude but competent enough. He didn't like Ren much ever since Ren was promoted.

Ren tried to keep his distance because the reason Kenji hadn't been promoted yet despite being competent enough was that he tried to steal the seal designs of one of their superiors. Well, the actual reason was that he got caught but nevertheless, that didn't sound like a good prospect for friendship to Ren who constantly invented new seals.

"This dude wants something from ya." Kenji pointed at a sixteen-year-old ginger-haired boy who stood behind him, fidgeting a bit while wearing the uniform of the intelligence department.

Ren gave the boy a quick once over, instantly classifying him as a new genin, probably an errand boy still, "Hello, Mr. dude." He smiled, trying to ease some of the boy's tension, "How can I help you?"

"Inoichi Yamanaka sent me. He would like to see you, sir." The boy informed Ren, making him surprised.

Ren felt a bit nervous. He knew it was probably nothing serious but getting an invitation to the T&I for a chat didn't sound very reassuring. He hadn't done anything treasonous in the past month or so either.

With a sigh, Ren stood up and silently prepared his experimental transportation seal in his pocket. It wasn't finished work and using it in combat was impossible but he had already tested it with clones and the seal could transport him away all the way to the Land of Waves where he left a beacon seal when he was there as Kurenai's reinforcements a few weeks ago. It just needed around twenty seconds of concentration.

His very own inferior Hiraishin knock-off.

"Senpai... you haven't done anything stupid recently, have you?" Kenji chimed in with a grin, happy at the chance to get some prime gossip.

Ren blandly looked at him and dryly said, "I gave the Uzumaki boy a bowl of ramen. But I swear it was a complete accident."

Kenji snorted at that, "No wonder the head of the intelligence department wants to see you. That's practically a terrorist act."

Ren rolled his eyes and looked at the messenger boy, "Let's go. The sooner I get this over with the better." He said with a sigh.

...

"Mr. Yamanaka. You wanted to see me?" Ren asked as he walked into Inoichi's office.

The man stood up and gestured with a welcoming smile at the empty seat in front of his desk, "Call me Inoichi, please."

'I guess this is not an interrogation, then.' Ren thought as he sat down. "What can I do for you?"

Inoichi stayed silent for a moment, tapping his pen on the table. Then, he suddenly spoke in a measured tone, "I heard you are looking into mental techniques and yin release."

Ren owlishly blinked. He did ask around for information about these things so he wasn't surprised the man knew about it. But as far as he knew there was nothing wrong about it.

It's not as if Yamanakas had a patent on techniques affecting the mind. It was only their clan jutsu that was off-limits.

"Is that a problem?" Ren asked in a puzzled voice. "I can assure you I wasn't looking into your clan techniques."

"No, no. That's not why I mentioned it. Rest assured." Inoichi said, "I heard and confirmed that you did wonders for Hinata Hyuga as her tutor. My daughter, Ino, is in a similar spot." The man looked Ren in the eyes.

Suddenly, Ren really did not like where this was going. He'd prefer the interrogation, to be honest.

"I have no idea what to do with the girl. The world of ninjas is a dangerous place but my little angel is not taking it seriously at all." He sighed, "Yet, I can't bring myself to destroy her peaceful childhood."

"So, you want me to be the villain. Is that it?" Ren frowned. He had a hard time staying polite and keeping himself from deadpanning at the man.

Inoichi wanted him to tutor his daughter like he did for Hinata. Ino was the same as in canon. A fangirl obsessed over Sasuke. She was an immature kid who was dieting, not taking her kunoichi lessons seriously, and thinking the world was full of roses and sunshine because of how spoiled and sheltered she was by Inoichi.

If Ren had misgivings about accepting Hinata as his pupil, then he had ten times worse misgivings about taking in Ino. He could just tell she would be an obnoxious little shit. On top of that, dealing with her Uchiha obsession was going to drive him mad in short order.

He really didn't feel like doing it.

Probably seeing the reluctance hidden on Ren's face, Inoichi decided to give him the proverbial carrot, "I wouldn't mind sharing some theories and basic yin exercises if you took in my daughter as your pupil. It won't be anything secret or anything that could be termed as clan jutsu. Just exercises for Yamanaka kids. But I can guarantee you that you won't find anything better in the village."

Hearing his offer, Ren inwardly whined like a kid who was just told there would be no candy before he did his homework.

Ren needed info about yin release and how it tied into the mind. He wanted to use seals to alter the memory-sharing component of the shadow clones but he needed a starting point. More information on how the yin aspect of chakra worked.

Unfortunately, the information about that was not readily available. In fanfics, every kid and their mother knew yin and yang releases. But in reality, these were both high-end, top-secret, very niche things that not even many elite jonins knew about.

Ino-Shika-Cho clans were in a unique position when it came to yin and yang release. But they were not sharing.

The memory function of shadow clones was taxing on Ren's mind. Even with just three clones, it was tough to deal with over ten hours of fuinjutsu work memory feedback per clone.

Most of these memories were useless anyway. The important bits could be compressed into maybe fifteen minutes of memories. Ren wanted to make his clones able to select which memories to send over without needing to feed him memories of hours of busy work and giving him headaches.

But he still didn't want to deal with Ino!

"How about this? You are invited to our family dinner tomorrow. Properly think it over and give me your answer during it." Inoichi happily smiled, contrasting with Ren's sour expression.

The bastard knew that Ren didn't want to accept the offer but he also knew that it was too good to refuse.

So, with a forced polite smile, Ren nodded, making a deal with the devil. For he was sure trying to wrangle the spoiled Yamanaka princess was going to be pure hell.