Even though Tsubaki had decided to play along with King Sora's ninja obsession and feature in his passion project as thanks for saving her and nursing her back to full health, she couldn't forget about her real mission. To save the First Hokage, she still needed to search for clues about the Sage of Six Paths and the cure for his illness, which he had allegedly found in the Land of Redaku, according to Kurama... and what better place to start than by visiting the local library?
And so, the moment Tsubaki was pronounced fit to move about, she decided to ditch rehearsals, having already memorised all her lines while she was bed-bound, and seek out clues in the royal library, which was no less opulent than the rest of the palace.
"Whoa…"
Above Tsubaki's head hung a magnificent crystal chandelier, suspended from a ceiling covered in geometric patterns that made her dizzy just to look at. The walls were lined with mahogany shelves that reached to the ceiling, filled to the brim with leather-bound books, the characters on their spines inlaid with gold. There were also scroll compartments, shelves with interlocking wooden slats forming inverted triangles, in which scrolls could be stacked without rolling away, as well as special wooden boxes kept in drawers, reserved for the truly important scrolls.
It was all very overwhelming.
"What are you doing here? Shouldn't you be at the grand theatre for practice?" a man's voice suddenly rang out behind her. "I'll have you know the royal library is a place of serious work and learning, not for playing around."
Thankfully, Tsubaki's hearing had fully recovered after a few days' rest and a few applications of the Mystical Fingering Technique down the earhole, so she no longer overreacted whenever people sneaked up behind her.
Tsubaki turned around and recognised the man standing before her as the person who kept hounding King Sora about going back to work and taking his job seriously. He was the prime minister, a strict-looking elderly man with cold eyes, dressed in purple, black and gold. He also wielded a bird-themed sceptre and wore a turban set with a large ruby.
She offered him a slight curtsy.
"Ah, Lord Prime Minister, good morning," Tsubaki said innocently. "I was feeling a bit anxious about performing for the first time, so I wanted to research my character a little, since I know nothing about ninja… I heard the Sage of the Six Paths was the first one, so I thought maybe I could learn something if I came here…"
The prime minister looked at Tsubaki with an air of disgust.
With her voluptuous figure and the general air of impropriety she seemed to carry about her, she looked more like a common prostitute than a respectable woman of the court. This was the lowborn scum the king had taken a fancy to, much to his queen's dismay… her mere presence in the palace lowered the dignity of the office.
"I doubt a woman of your station has ever so much as opened a book," he sneered, his voice dripping with disdain. "Now, out with you, tramp…"
The prime minister's voice trailed off as Tsubaki's eyes turned scarlet, a single tomoe locking into place in each of her red irises. She was not certain whether the Saimingan from the most basic form of the Sharingan would work on a sharp-minded individual, but apparently, it was enough.
"It'll be my pleasure to assist you, dear lady!" the prime minister said eagerly. "Records of the Sage of Six Paths can indeed be found in the royal library!"
"Oh, and while you're at it, bring me everything you have on shinobi," Tsubaki called after him as he shuffled off to fetch the relevant books and scrolls. "Once you're done, go back to your room, face the wall and count to ten thousand, then forget about ever seeing me here today."
The prime minister soon returned with an armful of documents, which he deposited on a nearby table. With the satisfaction of a job well done, the old man gave her a spine-cracking bow before plodding out of the library and back to his room, where he promptly began counting.
"Welp, time to study…"
The Collected Legends of the Sixth Hokage, How to Avoid Huge Elephants, An Illustrated Guide to Poisonous Mushrooms and How to Recognise Them, Manuscript: Six Paths Journal, Atlas of the Known World, Divine Artefacts and their Wielders, The Redaku Royal Family and the Shuigu…
It seemed the prime minister had brought her everything even remotely related to shinobi and spycraft. What a drag…
"Wait, that's it!" Tsubaki muttered to herself excitedly. "Manuscript: Six Paths Journal!"
Tsubaki carefully opened the yellowed book... but while its cover was written in the lingua franca of the shinobi continent, its actual contents were in some unknown tongue. She then went to the circulation desk and asked the librarian if there were any dictionaries she could borrow to decipher the book's contents, but unfortunately, there were none; the manuscript was written in a dead language.
She had hit a dead end.
"Seems I'll have to go grave robbing," Tsubaki muttered to herself. "Maybe there'll be an old enough corpse in the royal tomb, someone who knows the old tongue..."
Since Sakura was Hokage, she could naturally peruse the Scroll of Secrets at her leisure. She had learned the unperfected Impure World Reincarnation Jutsu developed by the Second Hokage, but had never used it, so for Tsubaki, who had inherited a portion of her skills, this would be an entirely new experience.
However, there was always the possibility that Tsubaki might fail.
The technique was exceedingly complicated, so if it proved to be too difficult for her, she would have to ask Sasuke for help. Furthermore, the only dōjutsu she possessed was the one-tomoe Sharingan; unlike Sakura, she didn't have a □□□□ to help manage her conflicting bloodlines, which meant she couldn't change eye powers on the fly. If the person she revived didn't speak the new common tongue, she wouldn't be able to draw out his knowledge using the Rinnegan's Human Path power.
In any case, it was still far too early to go grave robbing. There was plenty of time before nightfall, so she decided to keep researching the documents the prime minister had brought her until then.