Pre-Chapter A/N:Another chapter on time? Guess my lock-in is going pretty well. If you haven't already, I recommend turning on notifications for my stuff so you can see when new stuff drops right as it drops. More chapters on my patreon(https://www.patreon.com/c/Oghenevwogaga)— same username as here and link in bio. Since I just started a new story, there's a cheeky discount on said patreon(https://www.patreon.com/c/Oghenevwogaga) page for anyone interested.
I stared at the body. He was still just how he had looked the last time I had seen him. If I was not so certain he was dead, I would have assumed that he was merely sleeping—that he could wake up at any time and cleave my head from my shoulders—or at least try to. The bracers on his hands, the only clothing or jewelry that remained on him, stood out there, shining gold—they had been difficult to remove, and I had considered it too disrespectful to try all that hard. We were not so far gone that we would resort to stripping the corpses of our opponents for gold—particularly someone like this man who had given me the kind of fight songs had been written about.
"Still nothing?" I asked.
"The body decays naught. We've tried submerging it in water, burying it with no protection, and a million of our other suggestions. It is also none the easier to collect samples from. We have done what we can with saliva and hair but few things beat blood for our purposes," she said.
"Have you tried—" I pointed at the sheet that covered his lower body.
"Do not be stupid, Shorirama. It does not suit you. The body might look like it merely slumbers but this man has been long dead. There's nothing there. And even if there was, would you do the extraction?" she asked.
"Forgive me for asking then. Someone's in a mood," I commented. She looked over at me before she sighed, deflating.
"I normally enjoy a good puzzle, but this one… It has been years. I grow older and slower by the day. This might be one that I never solve before I die," she said.
"Don't talk like that. You've still got a good while left in you," I said. She scoffed.
"The only person who even truly remembers what I look like without wrinkles is that grandmother of yours, and she's never liked me one bit."
"Now that's just patently untrue," I pointed out.
"Which bit? Her not liking me or the wrinkles?"
"Well, you don't like her either. I meant the wrinkles. I've seen the number of old bastards in the Hyuga council. I can swear I hear a creak whenever old man Hanasuke moves. You aren't even close to that old," I said. She scoffed again.
"Hanasuke died decades ago. He's just refused to accept it and move on. I don't want something like that. I want to go when my time comes—peacefully and without making too much of a fuss about it. And boy, my time is coming whether we like it or not."
"Well, I'm sure you can delay it for a bit because it doesn't look like we're getting any closer to solving—" I teleported out of the room as I noted the senbon heading my way.
— — —
"How are things going in Iwa?" I asked.
"We have people scraping every spare bit of land. We will find them eventually—the ones in particular who did this, and we will put them down like the dogs they are," Shika said. I nodded.
"And it is going well?"
"As well as it can. We've lost a few teams so far but nothing beyond our expectations," she said. I nodded at that as well, even if I felt far from satisfied. I wanted to be out there doing something. Partly because I wanted to get direct revenge for Kiara and partly because I wanted to get that dream out of my head. Was 'dream' even the right word? Kurama had never had any of my dreams with me before so what had that been?
"I know you called me for something more than that though," she said. I nodded and reached into my drawer where I produced a perfect sketch of the boy from the "dream." One upside of mastering Fuinjutsu was that your fingers got so steady when moving a brush across a surface that basically any kind of art was possible. It was just a matter of knowing what one wanted to depict. And the rest was as they say… history.
"Who is this?" she asked.
"I don't know," I said.
"Where is he from? He looks like a Hyuga," she asked next.
"I don't know," I replied again.
"Why do you want him found?"
"What is this? 20 questions?" I scowled at the continuous questioning.
"Are you okay?" She shifted tacks, stepping closer to my desk.
"I'm fine. I just want him found, Shika," I said, trying to use what Uraume had begun calling my Hokage voice to show I was not in the mood for further questions.
"You haven't given me a lot to work with here, but I will do my best. If this boy is findable, then we will find him," she said. I nodded at her in thanks as she left. With my Byakugan, I watched her leave the tower, and then head to her own office.
I deactivated it and slid my chair over to the other end of my desk. I tapped the bottom of the desk, activating the seal matrix within once it verified both my chakra and DNA. The ground beneath my chair shifted, lowering me into my own special hidden chamber. I stood up when the mechanism had done its work and looked around at the scrolls. Hashirama's notes, Tobirama's, and the scroll of forbidden seals.
'You think your forebears came in contact with that boy?' Kurama asked as I walked in and moved towards the journals.
'I doubt it. I have a very bad feeling about what exactly that boy was. I don't have any evidence for it, and the signs are not all there, but it is possible,' I said.
'You think he is one of those Otsutsuki as well, then?'
'Great minds think alike.' I chuckled without humor.
'The lack of horns goes to disprove that theory. They all had them. Even half Otsutsuki like Hagoromo and Hamura. He could be a quarter like Indra and Asura, but that kicks up another can of worms.'
'Yet you have come to look through your forebears' notes. What do you hope to find?' He turned the topic back to what had brought us here.
'It worries you too, doesn't it?' I asked. Kurama was being far too curious about things for him not to be worried. He'd barely left the back of my mind all day, watching everything I watched as I went about my day. I'd even felt his chakra fluctuate a few times like he was trying to cycle it to check for genjutsu.
'That illusion… you were not the only one ensnared,' he said, and there was silence across our bond for a few seconds as I digested that. Getting a tailed beast within a genjutsu was something that one needed the Mangekyou Sharingan for. His eyes had been the pupilless orbs of the unactivated Byakugan, so how could he have done it?
My mind flashed back to his appearance. There was no sign on his forehead that was hiding a third yet, but then again, it wasn't like we'd ever gotten to truly see how having three eyes working in truth would work in this universe. If you closed the eye, did the skin on the forehead seal itself up just like a normal head or were there remnants maybe something eyelids left taking up space on the forehead? If it was the latter, then that meant there was no chance that he had one. If it was the former, there was a chance, but it has never been shown one way or the other. My instinct was that those third eyes couldn't be closed either way and that was what made sense to me.
So if he didn't have a third eye—and I was quite confident that there wasn't one lurking under the very normal skin he sported at the top of his head—then he had to have cast that illusion using some other means. And what could this means have been? Another point in favor of him being some sort of Otsutsuki. They were the ones with the strange techniques and all that. If anyone would have a genjutsu capable of working on a tailed beast without it being doujutsu-based, then a member of the Otsutsuki clan would be a good first bet.
'If you're still wondering what we are doing here, I came looking for something in Hashirama's journals. He came up with a way to get even more out of his physical enhancement with chakra at some point. Not Tsunade's strength as that was single impact, but something not too far off from that level. I skipped past it because I have so many means to hit harder—Sage Mode, you, Heavyweight Boulder Jutsu, all that, but—'
'But now you fear that what you have will not be enough.' He completed my thoughts for me.
'Maybe that dream meant nothing. But in the slim chance that we have some sort of Otsutsuki after us, then we need every advantage we can get,' I said.
'Do as you will then,' Kurama growled before shutting the metaphorical door on our bond. I nodded before proceeding to the scrolls I needed.
XXXXXX- KUSHINA UZUMAKI
She looked up at the apartment number to be sure that she was at the right place. Behind her, she could hear Grandma rustling about in her seat. She could not blame her either. This wasn't… the best of places. She'd checked multiple times to ensure that she was on the right street, and then to make sure that she had the right building, and now to make sure she had the right room. The inside of the building looked somewhat better than the outside did, but that was not saying much.
The place looked old. Had probably been around since Hashirama himself, and it looked to have suffered every single one of the years it had existed. She sighed and knocked on the door as she heard Grandma inhale behind her. Old age had done little to soften her Grandmother's acerbic tongue, and while Shori-nee could give it back to her with the ease of breathing, she was far from that level.
"Who's there?" She heard his voice from inside and released a breath she did not know she had been holding. It would have been awkward if this was someone else's place… not to add that there was no chance she would be hearing the end of it.
"Kushina," she said. She heard the sound of something falling over in the apartment and against her will felt a smile cut across her face.
"Kushina?" He called back.
"Yes, me," she said, not able to swallow the smile even if she wanted to.
"I'm coming. Give me a second," he said, and she heard the sound of movement inside. A lot of movement. He'd probably formed a clone… or ten, she amended. It sounded like the quietest stampede ever. Many feet moving silently as they could manage on creaky floorboards.
It took longer than a second, but eventually, the door swung open.
"You should have told me to come meet you somewhere, Kushina," he said as he set his eyes on her.
"Meet my Grandmother Mito, Minato," she said, stepping to the side and gesturing to her Grandmother.
"Oh." He seemed unable to speak for a second.
"Nice to meet you, Ma'am," he finally managed to squeak out before looking down at Grandmother's chair and then at the stairs.
"I hope you did not have much trouble coming up," he said.
Grandma scoffed, and the chair floated from the ground before hovering its way into the apartment. Minato was forced to stumble out of the doorway to let her in. Kushina followed in her wake, looking around.
The apartment was larger than the outside indicated. Very much so. He'd probably combined multiple apartments into his to make this large one. Still, large as it was, it was extremely open-concept.
The bed was shoved against the far end of the room, a small thing that did not look all that comfortable to sleep on. Then there was the kitchen on the opposite side of it. A small island separated it from the bed, and then there were a few cabinets and a burner. Between the kitchen and bed was a door that probably led to the bathroom.
The rest of the room was occupied by the workshop. Multiple tables, each one piled high with books, scrolls, and just loose paper leaves. The walls had boards with loose leaves of paper pinned to each one. She could see the barebones of several projects she knew he was working on. The barrier to prevent the internal manipulation of chakra looked to be the one most far along, and it was the one that Grandma had her attention on.
"So what brings you here?" he asked, shutting the door behind them.
"Why do you live here?" she asked instead. The inside of his apartment was better maintained than the rest of the building, but it was still far from nice. She'd seen the nicer buildings being built in the shinobi complex when she'd followed Mikoto apartment sightseeing. Even the worst of them were ten times better than this one. Was Minato not taking enough missions? Surely, he could just ask Shori-nii for the money. Kushina herself had all her money going into the clan account, but she knew Shori-nii had a lot of it.
"What do you mean? It's my apartment. Where else would I live?" he asked with that innocent look on his face.
"Somewhere that looks like it's passed a fire inspection in the last two decades," Grandma said. Kushina found herself chuckling despite herself.
"Ohhhh. It just looks run down. Everything works pretty well. Well, except for the water sometimes. And the heating hasn't come on all year, and the water heater's a lost cause, and sometimes the pipes get blocked so I don't get any gas in for my cooker, and the fridge only does a few hours of work everyday before it gives up, but beyond that? It's quite good," he said, scratching the back of his head.
Grandma scoffed while Kushina chuckled.
"We should get you a new place. I'm sure Shori-nii won't mind paying. He won't even notice that he's paying. I can withdraw from his accounts, you know?"
"I don't need Sensei paying for my place. I like living here. I've been here since I left the orphanage and it's all I really need. It used to be cramped, but I bought the next two flats and added them into mine so I've got quite a bit of space. And no one here complains if I break something or if I'm being noisy by 4am," he said.
"I think it's because most of the people here are criminals," she whispered back. She knew there was crime in Konoha. Very little violent crimes, but she was aware that there were a smuggling operation and drug ones that were quite massive. She'd seen some reports from Uraume-san on Shori-nii's desk. While Shori-nii didn't seem to mind them all that much as long as they paid their taxes and played by the rules he cared about, she didn't think Minato deserved to be living amongst them.
"Naaa. Just mostly older folks with nowhere else to go. Now, I'm sure you didn't come here to talk about where I live, Kushina, Mito-sama."
"You're right," she said with a sigh.
"I want you to watch me. I think Gyuki and I are ready for a full transformation," she said.
"A full transformation? Like you'll turn into the eight tails completely?" he asked, eyes wide.
"I thought you said he was smart," Grandma said, having moved to look at a different barrier.
"Yes, Minato, a full transformation has only one real meaning. And Grandma, he is."
"Sorry, it's just….me? Shouldn't we be getting Sensei for this?" he asked.
"Grandma can restrain me with her chakra tails if I lose control, and you can lock down my seal to put him back in. There's no need to involve Shori-nii in this," she said.
"You just want to surprise him with it the next time we spar," he accused. She shrugged.
"Can we just get going?" she asked.
"Sure. Let me just go put on something else," he said, gesturing to his present state. She flushed as she realised he wasn't dressed how he usually was. It had been a while since she'd seen him without the combat fatigues and flak jacket. Just wearing a simple pair of trousers and a shirt made him look quite different, now that she thought about it. Softer, but not in a bad way. More personable.
Like there was a human there, and not just Shori-nii's ideal shinobi.
"No. Just grab a kunai holster or something. We don't have time," she said, lying quite obviously. They weren't pressed for time by any means. It wasn't like the training ground they were heading to had a chance of being occupied or anything like that. It also wasn't like she and Grandma had something else they had to do today. Life as the guardian of Konoha was quite slow most of the time—a good thing.
"Oh okay then," he said, walking over to the wall. The wall itself swung around as he approached, revealing a closet. The kunai holster was placed on a rack with a few others. He took one seemingly at random, but she noted that the seals on it were at least slightly different than the others. He strapped it to his thigh, making the free flowing trousers tighten quite close to his…
Grandma coughed.
"Can we get moving now?" she asked, giving Kushina a look that told her she noticed where her eyes had strayed.
"Yeah, let's get going," she agreed, turning and marching out of the place, hoping to all the gods that Minato couldn't see the flush building on her cheeks.
A/N: Yeah, the mystery with the dreams won't be solved anytime soon. Next five up on patreon (https://www.patreon.com/c/Oghenevwogaga)(same username as here and link in bio), support me there and read them early.