Looking into the boy's completely unclouded eyes, the smile on Tsunade's face gradually disappeared. She reached out, placed two fingers lightly on Akira's wrist, and began examining him in detail.
As her sensing chakra moved deeper along his pathways, the color drained from her face almost instantly. A chill shot straight up her spine.
"This... this is an ocean..."
She could hardly believe what she was sensing. It wasn't merely "a lot" of chakra. It was bottomless. Even the raging Nine-Tails chakra inside Naruto, compared to what Akira was showing her now, seemed almost thin.
Tsunade swallowed, her voice suddenly dry. "Your chakra... it may actually be greater than the Nine-Tails', isn't it?"
Akira shook his head gently and corrected her. "Not that exaggerated. Right now, it's about equal to a complete Nine-Tails at best. The one inside Naruto is only half of the full beast."
Tsunade's brows immediately drew together. "Half? What do you mean?"
She knew Naruto was Minato's son, but because she had been away from the village for so long, she didn't know all the details of what had happened on the night of the sealing.
"The Nine-Tails inside Naruto was deliberately split into two halves. If it were whole, there's no way Naruto would look the way he does now."
Akira explained a little further. If someone had tried to seal the complete Nine-Tails into an infant, a body that small wouldn't have lasted even a second.
Naruto had inherited the Uzumaki clan's monstrous vitality, yes, but the corrosive force of a complete Nine-Tails was far too overwhelming. And unlike Mito or Kushina, Naruto had not been a sealing master before becoming a jinchūriki.
Those two women had possessed absolute control over the Nine-Tails.
Whether it was Mito-hime, the first host, or Kushina after her, both had treated the beast as nothing more than a dangerous prisoner to be kept under restraint.
Neither of them had ever tried to do what Naruto would later do, to truly understand the creature inside them and reach any kind of mutual understanding.
They could forcibly draw on the Nine-Tails' chakra, but that kind of harmonious cooperation Naruto would one day achieve was never something either of them pursued.
If they wanted chakra, they simply took it.
They didn't need the beast's permission.
That alone showed just how completely the Uzumaki sealing arts were a natural enemy of the tailed beasts.
Once the seal was in place, even a disaster on the level of the Nine-Tails had no choice but to lie still in someone's stomach.
Back then, even after Kushina had the beast forcibly extracted from her and was already near death, she had still been capable of using the Adamantine Sealing Chains to bind the Nine-Tails solidly in place. That kind of life force and mastery over seals was far beyond anything Naruto could currently match.
So if the complete Nine-Tails had been sealed into the Naruto of today, losing control would have become a daily occurrence.
Even with only half of it, until he truly tamed that power, the slightest emotional spike could push him toward a dangerous state.
That kind of instability had never been heard of with Mito or Kushina.
Kushina, in fact, had managed to hide the truth of her status as a jinchūriki for almost her entire life. Most villagers had no idea that the loud, red-haired woman among them carried a monster inside her.
This was the first time Tsunade had heard anything this detailed. Half of the Nine-Tails had already been enough to throw Konoha into chaos. What kind of terror would the full beast be?
And yet the boy standing in front of her possessed chakra reserves comparable to that complete version.
What kind of monster did that make him?
Seeing the shock rippling through her face, Akira smiled helplessly. "Don't look so stunned. The world is full of strange things. If you want to compare me to someone, compare me to the First Hokage. I'm still not at his level."
Tsunade still hadn't fully recovered. She kept staring at him.
Hashirama Senju had reached his level after decades of training.
Akira was thirteen.
A thirteen-year-old human tailed beast. Who would even believe that?
Fortunately, this monster stood on Konoha's side. If he had been born elsewhere, Tsunade didn't even want to imagine the consequences.
"No wonder you didn't even seem winded while maintaining Hundred Healings just now," she murmured. "Your foundation is too absurd."
Then her expression sharpened like a blade. She turned abruptly toward Shizune, who had been organizing the scrolls nearby.
"Shizune. You are going to keep your mouth sealed about Akira's chakra reserves. If even half a word leaks out, I will personally make sure you regret it."
For that instant, the killing intent erupting from Tsunade was tangible. That was the kind of pressure only someone like one of the Legendary Sannin could produce, someone who had truly crawled through mountains of corpses.
Shizune nearly dropped the scroll in her hands. Her heart slammed in her chest as she nodded frantically. "Tsunade-hime, I won't say a word! I swear it!"
Only once Shizune had gone pale did Tsunade pull her killing intent back. Even after years wasted in gambling halls, the ruthlessness at the core of her hadn't gone anywhere.
This matter concerned Akira's life, and perhaps Konoha's future as well. She would not allow even the slightest carelessness.
Once she had frightened Shizune into silence, Tsunade immediately dragged Akira right back into studying sealing jutsus.
Shizune wiped the sweat from her forehead. She knew Tsunade wasn't really targeting her personally. A secret of this scale truly was the sort of thing that should be known by as few people as possible.
If word ever spread, the monsters hidden in other nations would likely come at any cost to eliminate a talent like him.
Time flew by. Before long, the sun had already begun to set.
Akira rose, preparing to leave, but Tsunade caught him by the sleeve and dragged him into the courtyard of the old Senju estate.
Even a dying giant was still a giant. The Senju had long since declined, but the scale and dignity of the estate were in no way inferior to the Hyūga compound.
The main house Tsunade used alone was already an elegant wooden mansion.
The two of them sat on the engawa outside, with the evening wind carrying a faint chill through the garden.
Tsunade turned toward him, her gaze fixed and bright. "You little monster. Just how many secrets are you still hiding?"
"The sort everyone else seems to know while somehow I'm the only one left in the dark."
Akira braced both hands behind him on the wood and tilted his head back to look at the stars for a long while before finally speaking.
"If I had to name one... probably that."
"The bloodline ability I have."
Tsunade froze, her eyes widening slightly. "A kekkei genkai? You've got one of those too?"
As far as she knew, Akira was unmistakably from civilian origins. In Konoha, anyone with even a hint of secret jutsus usually came from some clan. A true kekkei genkai was rarer still.
Akira nodded calmly. "Quite a few people already know, actually. Kakashi-sensei, Guy-sensei, Captain Yamato... and Yugao."
The moment she heard Yugao, Tsunade's brows drew together so slightly that someone less observant might have missed it.
"Who's Yugao?"
Women, whatever else they might be, always had especially sharp instincts in moments like that. Tsunade was no exception.
Akira answered openly. "Yugao Uzuki. An ANBU operative. A very capable one. I saved her once when I was younger, and we stayed on good terms after that. She helped me a lot."
"My own body didn't start out with any kekkei genkai. Later on, through her and Captain Yamato, I got my hands on a forbidden scroll on merging bloodline traits. I spent years experimenting before I barely succeeded in combining one."
That explanation noticeably softened Tsunade's expression. She wasn't unreasonable. Her attention was quickly drawn instead to the madness of the phrase merging bloodline traits.
"You created one yourself? Have you lost your mind? Experiments like that have terrifying mortality rates. One mistake and your body's structure collapses."
Akira flashed a grin. "I've always liked doing dangerous things. Life needs a few challenges."
Tsunade sighed. Over this past stretch of time, she had gotten more than enough examples of just how abnormal Akira was.
Any advanced jutsu, he could glance at once and start reproducing. Train it a little and master it. He had even dared to attempt a bloodline fusion experiment that should have killed him, and succeeded.
That alone was enough to show how monstrous his talent was.
Tsunade couldn't suppress her curiosity. "So what exactly did you fuse?"
Akira gave her a mysterious smile, his hands moving through signs so fast they blurred.
"Wood Style: Wood Clone Jutsu."
In front of Tsunade's stunned eyes, a sprout suddenly burst from the floorboards, then grew and twisted in an instant until it became another Akira standing beside the first.
Tsunade's eyes went wide as she scanned the two figures back and forth. She genuinely couldn't distinguish which was the original and which was the clone.
That was the horrifying part of Wood Clones. Unless someone's strength completely overwhelmed yours or they knew you intimately, the deception was nearly flawless.
Akira snapped his fingers, and the clone instantly reverted into a dead piece of wood.
"Well?" he asked with a grin. "Now you know."
Tsunade looked at him as though he were some prehistoric monster dragged into the present. "You really built that yourself?"
Akira nodded.
"My Wood Style fundamentals all came from secretly studying Captain Yamato. Back then, he didn't know I could use anything like that, so every time he used a jutsu, I memorized the chakra flow from the side."
"Later I completed an S-rank mission and the Third old man let me pick a jutsu from the Scroll of Seals. I took the opportunity to memorize a few of the First Hokage's stronger Wood Style jutsus."
"You remember I mentioned that I know the Impure World Reincarnation? That came from the same little shopping trip."
Strictly speaking, none of that was particularly honorable, but Akira said it all with total confidence. After all, the Third was gone now. There was no one left to contradict him.
Tsunade let out a bitter laugh and shook her head. "If you can use Wood Style, then there are a lot more of my grandfather's notebooks in the archive that could help you. If you want them, you're free to read them. You may find more lost jutsus there."
Akira's eyes lit up and he nodded.
Then Tsunade suddenly stiffened her face and asked in mock severity, "So when we were in the archive earlier, and you went straight for sealing jutsus instead of Wood Style materials, was that because you didn't want me finding out about this?"
Seeing how serious she looked, Akira instantly understood what this really was. She felt he hadn't trusted her completely, and she was sulking over it.
Shizune had been there earlier. In that situation, it wasn't exactly appropriate to reveal a hidden card like Wood Style.
He gave a helpless smile. "At the time, I really didn't know how to explain it. If an ordinary civilian suddenly starts using Wood Style, anyone's first instinct is going to be that something's wrong."
"And if news got out and someone like Danzo got interested, I'd probably have to pack my bags and run off as a missing-nin."
The moment he said that, Tsunade's eyes widened sharply. She slammed one hand against the floorboards.
"You'd better not."
Her voice rang with absolute certainty. "As long as I'm here, I'd like to see who thinks they can force you into becoming a rogue ninja."
Hearing that firm promise, Akira felt warmth spread through him.
Tsunade truly had accepted him as one of her own. More than that, she had clearly placed him somewhere deeply important in her mind.
As long as he didn't choose to betray Konoha himself, Tsunade would stand behind him without hesitation.
And Akira wasn't foolish enough to throw away a comfortable life for the sake of becoming some dramatic rogue ninja.
Back when he kept his head down, it was only because he hadn't been strong enough yet and wanted to avoid unnecessary trouble. All he had wanted was a quiet life.
Now he had a powerful backer, and that backer was the soon-to-be Fifth Hokage.
At this point, he could practically walk through Konoha sideways.
Honestly, even if he did become a missing-nin in some moment of madness, with Tsunade's protective nature, the wanted order would probably be little more than a formality. She might even turn on the village for his sake.
Putting her in a position like that was something he had no desire to do.
He smiled and, in a natural gesture of reassurance, laid a hand across her shoulder.
Tsunade's body stiffened slightly before relaxing again, a faint warmth touching her cheeks.
This idiot was usually so wooden that moments like this were rare enough to catch her off guard.
Then Akira leaned in slightly and said in a low voice, "Actually... I don't just have one bloodline trait. But for the next one, you'll need to prepare yourself a little."
Tsunade blinked. There were still things left that might actually shock her?
"I thought you said there was only one."
Akira grinned. "I lied."
Tsunade's teeth clenched. She reached over and sharply pinched him at the waist. "You've got a lot of nerve. Lying to me now?"
She sounded fierce, but she wasn't actually using any real force. If she had, with her monstrous strength, he might have lost a kidney.
Akira caught her hand, and the look on his face suddenly became completely serious.
Then he released the seal hiding his eyes.
Humm—
A cold, powerful ocular pressure spread out instantly.
The moment Tsunade saw his eyes, she froze completely, as though struck by lightning.
"This... this is impossible."
"Don't tell me you fused this too. That's ridiculous."
Akira's pupils had turned scarlet. The three tomoe spun rapidly, then merged into a complex geometric pattern.
Mangekyō Sharingan.
This was the exclusive gift of the Uchiha clan. It was an organ-level mutation, fundamentally different from any sort of chakra-nature fusion.
As the greatest medic alive, Tsunade understood that much perfectly well.
Akira blinked, and the eerie pattern vanished at once, returning his eyes to normal dark pupils.
That alone proved the eyes were completely under his control. They weren't transplanted. They were a true part of his body.
Tsunade's thoughts were in complete disarray. "Don't tell me you're some illegitimate child of the Uchiha clan who ended up outside the family?"
If Akira really were Uchiha, then her own life had just become tangled up with the last clan she ever would have expected.
The whole thing would be absurd.
It wasn't that Tsunade hated the Uchiha. She was simply trying to understand how, if Akira had been one of them, he could possibly have survived that massacre.
Seeing the direction her imagination was taking, Akira couldn't help tapping her lightly on the forehead.
"What exactly are you thinking? I got these eyes by chance on the night of the Uchiha massacre."
"I don't share even a drop of Uchiha blood."
Tsunade covered her forehead. That was true. She had already dug through practically every branch of Akira's family history.
As one of the Sannin, she wasn't the type to become deeply involved with some unknown man whose background she hadn't checked.
Akira's origins were clean to the point of absurdity. There was no connection to any major clan.
But the Mangekyō right in front of her was undeniable, and that made no sense at all.
She couldn't help asking, "Then what happened? Even among the real Uchiha, almost no one ever awakens those eyes. How did an outsider do it?"
Akira's gaze deepened, as though he had gone back in memory to that blood-soaked night.
"This wasn't like Wood Style. The Sharingan may have had something to do with my body being... unusual."
"The night of the massacre, I'd just been wandering back from the Hyūga compound when I felt something was wrong."
"ANBU had the whole Uchiha district wrapped up tighter than a steel drum, and the smell of blood in the air was strong enough to choke on."
"That's when I realized the Uchiha clan was finished."
"I slipped in while taking advantage of the chaos. Bodies were everywhere, and most of the awakened clan members had already had their eyes removed."
"Eventually I found my way into Sasuke's house. Fugaku and Mikoto were already dead. Oddly enough, their eyes were still there. Maybe Itachi couldn't bring himself to do that to his own parents."
"I looked at Fugaku's eyes for just a moment, and for some reason something in my own eyes suddenly resonated with them."
"A red flood of chakra came pouring through that connection and straight into my eyes. The sensation was like... being swallowed and swallowing something back at the same time."
"When it was over, I had the Sharingan. And somehow, it skipped straight to Mangekyō."
Akira described the scene in rough terms, carefully leaving out a few details.
"Right after I finished absorbing that ocular power, Itachi turned around and caught me. If I hadn't been able to use the Mangekyō's own ability, I probably wouldn't be sitting here now."
"My guess is that Fugaku left something in his eyes before dying, maybe meant for his son, and I intercepted it by accident."
"Or maybe my body really is just strange enough to forcibly seize ocular power."
It was half truth and half improvisation.
The story sounded absurd, but with that genuine Mangekyō staring back at her, Tsunade had no choice but to take it seriously.
And she believed Akira wouldn't lie to her about something this serious.
Even so, the coincidence was almost impossible to swallow.
Akira added, "That genjutsu I used on you earlier? That was actually the Mangekyō's built-in S-rank dōjutsu. Pretty overwhelming, right?"
Tsunade remembered the realism of that illusion and couldn't help shivering.
With a grave expression, she warned him, "Those eyes are far too conspicuous. Unless it's absolutely necessary, never use them in front of people. And whatever you do, don't let Danzo see them."
Hearing that her first instinct was worry for him, Akira felt something settle in his chest.
He smiled and reassured her. "Don't worry. Whether it's Wood Style or the Sharingan, both of them devour chakra. Without an enormous reserve to support them, they're just decorations."
"Take Captain Yamato. Yes, he can use Wood Style, but next to the First Hokage he's basically just landscaping. He could never suppress a tailed beast."
"The only reason I can control both these powers is because I have tailed-beast-class chakra to fuel them. Otherwise they would've drained me dry long ago."
Tsunade nodded in agreement. "That much is true. Chakra reserves really are the foundation of everything for a shinobi."