A plume of thick, white smoke puffed in the center of the office. As it cleared, a massive, grotesque silverfish, its primary body was a shimmering segmented expanse of metallic scales, but protruding from the sides were limbs that looked disturbingly human... pallid, muscular, and ending in multi-jointed fingers and toes. Encasing its entire fish head was a globe of water, held in place by a unique jutsu, allowing him to respire while walking the dry world of human. Its eyes were milky white with age.
"What do you want, young-boi?" Arakame's voice bubbled through the water sphere, which sounded distorted. He looked up at the Matriarch's son, his milky eyes squinting with deep irritation. "It better be world-ending, or you'll be scrubbing my scales for a decade. Do you have any idea how hard it is to get the silt out of these obsidian scales?"
young Ay didn't respond as he crossed his heavy bicep arms, and the veins in his neck were pulsing out. "Arakame, this is life or death," he barked, his voice echoing off the walls. "I need you to reverse-summon me and Aya to the Genbu's Stomach Dimension immediately. You're the only spirit contracted to both me and Aya. Every second we waste here is a second my nephew's life hangs by a thread."
The giant silverfish let out a long, wheezing groan. "You brute ones are always in a hurry. Fine, fine. Don't pop a blood vessel. You'll burn out before you're fifty." He did a single tiger seal and with it a puff of white smoke an identical silverfish appeared.
"Gora, stay here," Arakame commanded. "I'm taking these two to the Matriarch."
The silverfish, Gorakame, blinked and puffed out a chest. "Hey brother! You finally realized you can't do the heavy lifting without me? Don't worry, you can always rely on your younger, more handsome brother to hold down the fort!"
"Shut your mouth, Gora," Arakame snapped, his obsidian-plated torso shifting with a grating sound. "You are staying here, summon me back in thirty minutes. Not a second later." as Arakame vanished.
A while later, Aya vanished in a swirl of white smoke as she was reverse summoned by Arakame. young Ay followed a beat later, his silhouette flickering out of existence.
The Raikage's office fell into an eerie silence. Gorakame stood alone in the center of the room, looking at the devastation... the broken window where the wind whistled through, the ink-stained floor, and the empty, imposing chair of the Raikage. He waited as he poked his human-like finger at a stack of abandoned paperwork.
"Uh... brother?" Gora asked the empty air, his voice echoing pathetically. "Why am I the only one left behind in this untidy room? I, the most handsome one, should be where there is a fight! Where are the fans? The cheering?" He sighed, a stream of bubbles erupting in his water-head, and settled into a disgruntled crouch to wait for the clock to tick down.
~~
Benihime sat by her husband's side, her sharp eyes scanning every inch of the man who had, quite literally, been reborn.
The transformation was staggering. The Raikage's hair, once the pale yellow, had deepened into a vibrant, fiery tomato red... the unmistakable signature trait of the Uzumaki. It wasn't just the color; the very texture of his chakra had shifted, becoming denser.
The Uzumaki bloodline limit, Benihime mused, her fingers hovering over his forehead. "It's rewriting his cellular blueprint. At this rate, he might even awaken the Adamantine Sealing Chains Kushina used against me."
She looked at her own hands, then back at his face. The wrinkles on his face had vanished, replaced by the taut, smooth skin of a man in his prime. He looked exactly like their son, Ay... the resemblance was so uncanny they could be mistaken for twins except for the hair color.
A pang of uncharacteristic jealousy pricked at her heart. Maybe I should try putting Uzumaki bone marrow into my own system, she thought. I'm the one doing all the worrying, yet he's the one getting a fountain-of-youth makeover while I feel every year of my life.
She sighed with nothing to do as Kushina Uzumaki seemed to have found a strange sort of peace here in Genbu. She had constructed a small, sturdy house, by herself. She lost the compassion for Konoha and it seems she had a new goal to rebuild Uzushiogakure.
Suddenly, she sensed her son and daughter appear inside Genbu's stomach dimension as Genbu is like a part of her she sensed it immediately. She vanished and reappearing instantly in front of the newcomers.
Arakame stood there, dripping water onto the boney floor of the dimension. Beside him, young Ay stood over the unconscious form of Aya.
"What happened?" Benihime's voice crooked. She didn't wait for an answer, leaping forward to kneel by her daughter. Her hands glowed with a soft, steady green light as she scanned Aya's vitals.
"It is complicated, mother," young Ay said, his voice uncharacteristically soft, his eyes fixed on the ground. "I will tell you... first check what happened to Aya."
Benihime's eyes narrowed as she worked. "Vitals are low, but stable. She had a sudden drop in heart rate and blood pressure brought on by extreme emotional stress or a shock to the nervous system due to vasovagal syncope." She placed a hand firmly over Aya's heart, sending rhythmic pulses of chakra into the girl's chest to regulate the beat. Slowly, the color began to return to Aya's cheeks.
"Now," Benihime said, standing up she lifted her head to look at her towering son. Her killing intent flickered, just enough to make his son know that she is serious. "Out with it. Why is my daughter unconscious and why are you looking like that?"
young Ay clenched his fists, his knuckles turning white. "Killer Bee sent a messenger scroll. He says Kaien is in danger."
"Why would he be in danger?" she hissed, her voice dropping to a dangerous tone. "Isn't he with you and Aya?"
"He... he insisted on being part of the Chinoike clan alliance mission," young Ay replied, finally meeting her gaze with a mixture of guilt and frustration. "He argued that his intellect was needed for the negotiations and... I agreed. I thought with a full escort, it was safe. Besides, Bee is already moving to intercept."
Benihime's laugh was short, and entirely devoid of mirth. "You agreed? You sent a boy who hasn't even qualified as a Genin into a zone of political instability and blood-limit clan? You thought because he can solve a cipher, he can survive a kunai to the throat?"
"Mother, he's smarter than most Jonin—"
"Intelligence is a luxury of the living, young Ay!" she snapped. Her chakra flared, causing the ground of the stomach dimension to quiver. "A genius corpse is still a corpse. Anyways call Renga... I am going to the front lines. I can't leave it to the chance while my Grandson is in danger."
young Ay's jaw tightened. He looked like he wanted to be anywhere else but under his mother's scrutiny. "Renga is the captain of the team. He's with Kaien."
Benihime didn't have words to speak for his sumb son. "He better be safe else, you aren't getting away with normal beating."
~~
A/N: So, the Raikage who should have woken up a year ago is still unconscious and he has become an Uzumaki.
Upto 20 Advance chapters available @ patreon.com/aizenDuchiha0
[40% off] [Code - ITACHI]