The "talk" that Kakashi-sensei spoke of happened later that afternoon, in the Hokage's tower. She was grateful that Naruto was with her, as the Hokage was accompanied by who seemed to be Ino and Shikamaru's fathers.
"Kakashi told me you can remember everything you've experienced, Seina," the Hokage began in a calm voice, and she nodded. "And that you remember what happened on the night of your birth. Today, we'll try to understand what happened that night with the help of your sensei, Shikaku Nara, and Inoichi Yamanaka. Could you explain to me what happened?"
"That night, I remember being born first, minutes before Naruto. Minutes after his birth, a stranger entered the... place where we were and took Naruto. My vision was blurry, but I heard several screams. At least two people died there: Biwako and Taji. My father rescued Naruto, then took my mother and me and brought us to another place, but before that, we were attacked again by this man, and the Kyubi was extracted from my mother's seal... He attacked the city under the orders of the stranger while my father said goodbye to us before trying to stop him. Finally, he used the Shiki Fujin and sealed a part of it in Naruto and another in me."
There was a heavy silence as they internalized her words and tried not to fall apart. She saw the Hokage seem to age suddenly upon hearing her account.
"How do you know that the stranger was Madara Uchiha?" Shikaku asked, with a serious expression.
"The stranger himself said his name was Madara Uchiha just after extracting the Kyubi."
"You think it wasn't him," Shikaku stated, and she nodded at such affirmation. "Why?"
"The Kyubi has sensed Madara Uchiha's chakra before. He told me that. Also, the person's voice... it was a man, but he seemed to be a teenager or a young adult. I don't think he was very old."
"Would you mind if I 'looked' into that memory, Seina?" Inoichi asked, and she shrugged.
She prepared her mind and memory for Inoichi's intrusion and allowed him to enter her mind, staying on the sidelines. Along with Ino's father, she heard what happened that day. When she saw him ready to leave her mind, she took him by his metaphorical hand and pulled him. She presented him with another memory. The memory of Kurama from that day. Minutes later, Inoichi came out of her mind with a sweaty forehead and a pale face.
"Inoichi? What can you tell us?" the Hokage asked, leaning forward in his seat.
"She's right. She heard everything that happened that night," and then he turned to look at her with an astonished expression. "You've shown me the Kyubi's memory. How did you do that?"
"I've always had control over my mind," she shrugged. "I've been meditating for years."
Shikaku and Kakashi-sensei suppressed a disbelieving laugh that Naruto couldn't help but let out. The Hokage, on the other hand, seemed surprised.
"Seina... are you able to interact with the Kyubi without it attacking you?" he asked, and she nodded.
"I've been talking to him for years. He knows I didn't seal him; I was just a baby then. He doesn't hold any resentment towards me for that."
The Hokage looked at his brother.
"I can also talk to my half from time to time, jiji. Seina-nee is right. The Kyubi isn't so bad. He's just angry because he was sealed years ago."
"Well..." the Hokage sighed. "We'll discuss that another time. The seal is intact so I know it can't influence or escape from you. Inoichi, could you describe what you've seen?"
"The Kyubi didn't recognize the enemy as Madara Uchiha because it knew his chakra, and upon comparison, it knew he was lying. Despite this, the stranger identified himself as Madara Uchiha to Kushina-hime. He was a man with short, unruly brown hair, pale skin judging by a hand without a glove, approximately 1.75 meters tall and weighing around 60 kilograms, with a young voice, athletic and slim build. He wore dark pants and a shirt and a black cloak with a hood. The only distinctive clue was a white mask with black horizontal lines with a single hole for the right eye, in which a Sharingan could be observed. The Kyubi didn't observe anything else about the enemy before being dominated by the Sharingan."
"I want a drawing of the stranger as soon as possible," the Hokage ordered. "Shikaku, assuming the fox's memory is true, what are the chances that it's Madara Uchiha and the Kyubi is lying?"
"We can't completely rule it out, but we must consider that at that time, he would have been 74 years old. Assuming what Inoichi saw is true, and the voice Seina heard, the only reliable evidence of this mess, verified by Inoichi, is indeed from a teenager or young adult... I'd say it's not Madara Uchiha. The fact that he wore a mask is also strange, as is using only one of his eyes. What person would identify themselves by name and, at the same time, hide their face under a mask? It may have been for a number of reasons, but collectively, it doesn't seem to make sense."
The Hokage nodded and turned to them. "Is there anything else I should know? Any other memory or recollection that might be useful?"
Seina thought for a moment, but she couldn't remember hearing anything else about that incident. She shook her head.
"The non-anbu," Naruto said, and everyone turned to look at him, but his brother looked at her. "The ninjas who were spying on us and the hospital and the tower."
"Non-anbu?" Kakashi-sensei asked, who had been silently standing by her side like a statue. "What do you mean, Naruto?"
"They were ninjas similar to anbu, but our anbu never seemed to have any contact with them," Seina explained, shrugging. "The only thing I heard about them was something about a base and the name Danzo."
"Since he's one of jiji's advisors, we didn't pay much attention to it."
Shikaku seemed about to throw himself out the window.
"Very troublesome... Are you sure about this?"
"And how do you know this?" Kakashi-sensei asked exasperated.
"We heard them," Seina said. "Naruto and I are very good at going unnoticed when we want to."
"How do you think we've pulled off so many pranks without getting caught?"
Kakashi-sensei exhaled exasperatedly while the others smiled. The Hokage lit his pipe with a fire jutsu while Inoichi tried not to laugh at Kakashi-sensei's tired face. Nevertheless, she felt a hand squeezing her shoulder in a sign of support and smiled.
"I think you're going to be very busy in the future, Kakashi."
Minutes later, after answering a few more questions, the Hokage ushered them out of his office, and Kakashi-sensei left with them.
"So, pranks, huh?" he sighed again. "Why do I sense multiple headaches coming?"
Naruto chuckled, resting his head on his crossed arms, and she smiled.
"If you don't show up three hours late, there won't be any need to worry, Kakashi-sensei," Seina assured him. "What are we going to tell Sasuke? It's clear he knows something's going on."
"We'll have to tell him the truth. Perhaps Sasuke can help us identify the assailant, if he really is an Uchiha. Besides, if we don't trust our teammates, we're destined to fail."
"And what about the... other?"
"Don't worry about that. If you hear or see anything strange, tell me immediately, but don't attempt anything on your own, understood?"
Naruto and she nodded. "Sensei... can you tell us about our parents?"
Kakashi-sensei didn't seem to hear them for a while, but then he looked up at the sky and began to speak. He explained how brilliant her father was as a ninja, as well as being a good person, how her mother was stubborn and passionate and a great fuinjutsu master. He talked about some missions they had done, everything they had taught him, and how they had embraced him, especially his father, when Sakumo committed suicide.
Listening to his sad, melancholic voice, Seina lightly touched his arm, and Kakashi-sensei gave her a tiny smile. They said goodbye in the center, and Naruto and Seina headed home, which had finally been placed under the Fidelius Charm.
"What a day..." Naruto sighed tiredly. They lay down on the couch. "I need to do anything else and forget that all this has happened."
"Why don't we continue with our renovation? There's still a couple of hours of sunlight left."
"Yosh! What do we do?"
Seina picked up the Muggle notebook they had just for drafting and saw what they had written down. They had barely cleaned the entire house from top to bottom and had started pulling weeds from the front yard. She could really do it all by herself, but Naruto wanted to get involved, so she gave him a couple of tasks. She looked at everything they had to do.
"Alright. How about fixing the garden? You'll need to pull out all the weeds, mow the lawn, and then dig a hole for the pool."
"How big should this hole be?"
"What do you think about 4 x 8 meters and 2 meters deep?" she asked. "That's a good size for swimming."
"Should I leave the dirt in a pile? We could use it for our garden."
"Hmm... you're right. I'll make you a bottomless barrel to put it in while we're not using it. I'll try to add the second floor and make the room divisions."
Luckily, the other day, after hiding the house, she had already expanded the property horizontally, adding a few more windows to let in more light. Now, all they had to do was enlarge it vertically and then remodel the spaces. She transformed one of the logs into a wooden barrel and charmed it to have no bottom. Naruto took it and set to work on the agreed-upon part.
She thanked the Weasleys for teaching her how to build a magical house because otherwise, she wouldn't have had a clue how to do it. She enlarged the walls vertically and watched as the staircase steps expanded. When she measured the exact length of the height they wanted in their rooms, she started adding the iron beams she had prepared earlier. Like all the transformed material, it had originally been a huge stone turned into metal and reinforced with runes.
It took almost an hour to fix the staircase steps, adding one more between each elongated step, and to place the beams straight and securely. Then, she made the ceiling of the ground floor from large white plaster boards, attached to the beams with permanent magic and runes. She filled the gap between the beams and the new ceiling with stones, which she then transformed into concrete. On top, she placed identical parquet boards to the rest of the house.
"Wow!" Naruto exclaimed when he saw her placing the last pieces of wood on the floor of the new second floor. "It looks incredible!"
"Have you done all the work already?" she asked, surprised, getting up from the floor.
"Nah. My clones are finishing digging the hole in the ground. I think we're only halfway there. The garden has been mowed, and the weeds removed."
"If you finish early, you can dig holes for the trees around the plot and the area between the pool and the rest of the garden."
Naruto nodded. "Do you need help around here?"
"No. With my clones, I just have to do the magical work," she denied. Clones couldn't do magic, but they saved her a lot of time, so everything was going smoothly. "You know, I've been thinking it might be better to leave the roof as it is."
"Hmm... yeah, maybe it's too much work. We could put the vegetable garden in the front yard."
"I was thinking the same thing. We can attach it to the wall in front of the house, and it wouldn't be intrusive. We'd still have plenty of front yard between the house and the vegetable gardens by the wall."
"Right."
Naruto returned to the garden, and Seina took advantage of the opportunity to finish the day's hard work by placing the vertical load-bearing walls, separating each room. Perhaps they had gone a bit overboard, she thought to herself. Each floor must have at least 150 square meters. More than enough for what they wanted. Fortunately, no one knew the exact meters they had bought from the real estate agency, neither land nor built, so she didn't worry. It's not like she was going to invite many people to her house anyway.
"Not bad," Naruto said when they reviewed everything they had done. "At this rate, you'll finish building the floor tomorrow."
"I still have to paint it, furnish it, decorate it, put up the magical lights, add the windows, doors, and bathrooms. I don't think I'll finish it in less than 3 days."
"Well, I dug the pool hole and the holes for the trees we plan to plant. The garden is tidied up, and we'll need to build the separations for the vegetable garden."
"The garden beds."
"What?"
"That's another name for the separations of the vegetable garden, from the rest of the garden."
"Garden beds. Okay. That's what I meant. What trees do you want me to buy? It would be nice to pick our own fruit."
"Ask the seller for fruit trees suitable for this climate and buy one of each," she shrugged. "Did you leave the walls of the pool hole smooth?"
"Yep."
"Then tomorrow I'll finish the pool. I just need to coat the walls with concrete and then choose a design for the tiles. What color do you want the pool water to be?"
"Sky blue! No! Turquoise!" Naruto sent her an image of a tropical beach.
"Hmm... sounds good to me. We'd better go have dinner and sleep."
The next day, they found that Kakashi-sensei had appeared at 8 in the morning instead of arriving an hour late. Astonished, Naruto couldn't believe it until he saw him preparing to talk to Sasuke about the Madara fiasco. It took exactly an hour for him to return with his teammate. In the meantime, he left them with a clone so they could practice taijutsu, with weights on their arms and legs, and shurikenjutsu, which included kunais, shurikens, and senbons.
"Let's let him cool off," Kakashi-sensei told them when they saw Sasuke clenching his fists in anger. "A couple of fights, and he'll get over it."
The jonin used his clones to calm Sasuke while he watched them practice their new ninjutsu techniques. Seina and Naruto practiced as they always did: adding more chakra than necessary and decreasing the flow until they mastered the technique. That, plus visualization and the correct mixing of chakra, supposedly were enough to perform the technique correctly.
"Suiton: suidan no jutsu!"
Se expelled the chakra through her mouth and, to her amazement, saw the chakra turn into a huge water cannon that ended up creating a small lake in the middle of the training field. She stopped the stream by destabilizing her chakra and wiped the water droplets that had splashed on her cheeks.
"SUGOI!" Naruto shouted when he saw it, with a wide grin. "That was incredible! Now it's my turn!"
Seina watched as Naruto used a similar technique, but of wind nature. She was grateful that he was aiming in another direction when she saw a tree split in two. In the distance, she saw her clones practicing the other two jutsus: a water sphere with whips that pierced through multiple enemies and a water shield capable of protecting its creator and pushing away enemies.
"Kakashi-sensei, could we learn some medical jutsu?" she asked, realizing that if they were attacked and she became unconscious, they were screwed.
"Hmm... Good question. The truth is, I have no idea about medical jutsu," he confessed, ignoring their raised eyebrows. "But we can ask for classes at the hospital."
"Oh, really? Great!"
"Would you like me to ask for you, Seina?" she nodded. "And what about you two?"
"Nah, my control isn't as good as Seina's. Plus, whatever she learns, she'll end up teaching me," Sasuke glanced at Seina, silently pleading her not to force him to go to the hospital despite wanting to learn new techniques. She rolled her eyes and nodded.
"All right, jerks! I'll go alone!"
They spent the whole day training the new ninjutsu, taijutsu against the jonin's clones, dodging genjutsu, and teaching Sasuke the shunshin and paralyzing jutsu. When she dispelled all the shadow clones, she felt her magical barriers strain as they received information from 50 different clones in a single second. She decided that next time, she would deactivate them gradually. Still, as she walked home next to Naruto, she smiled, realizing that she had practiced three different jutsus to perfection.
"I want to practice these jutsus with one hand and in silence," Seina said to Naruto as they snacked in the living room. "If I can do that, it could be very useful."
Naruto nodded, slurping instant ramen noodles. When they finished snacking, they went out to the garden ready to finish the pool.
"What do you think of this size? It's what we agreed on."
"It's perfect, Naru. You can go buy the trees while I finish up here."
"I'll take the savings wallet with me! Ja ne!"
Seina didn't even turn around, waving her hand over her head in farewell. She took out a few stones and began the work. It didn't take her more than 20 minutes to leave the walls smooth and gray with transformed concrete. Then, she laid tiles of a pale turquoise color inside the pool and rough-textured ivory-colored tiles around the pool to walk on and prevent slipping. Finally, she added a ladder with 2 metal steps fixed with several enchantments and supports around the pool where a cover would be attached, if necessary, to cover it. She used runes on the interior tiles to prevent the water from being contaminated and always staying temperate, and more runes on the ladder to prevent it from rusting.
When Naruto arrived with a bunch of clones carrying trees, Seina had already filled the entire pool with her new water technique.
"Wow... It's incredible! And huge!" Naruto exclaimed, leaving his tree in the first hole he saw.
Naruto's clones planted the different trees, still young, and then she used magic to make them grow a few meters.
"A fig tree?" she asked, looking at the tree. "Clearly, you don't know how figs grow."
"What are you talking about? Can't figs be eaten?" Naruto asked, confused.
"Well, in a very summarized way, female wasps lay eggs inside the figs, and then the males come and fertilize them," she explained, avoiding laughing at Naruto's horrified expression. "Then the wasp dies inside the fig."
"NANI!?"
It wasn't technically correct, the explanation, but for what Naruto needed to know, it was more than enough. It was clear, from his disgusted expression, that he wasn't going to eat a single fig.
"We can give the figs to Sasuke," Naruto nodded, looking at the tree. "I'm sure he'll like them."
Seina laughed and let Naruto finish planting and watering the trees. She went to the second floor and put the windows in their corresponding places, transforming the stones into glass. Then she made the door and window frames, placed the doors, separated the rooms with walls and their respective fillings, and modified the lamps with runes.
Meanwhile, Naruto had built the garden beds in the front of the house and had gone to buy seeds of plants they used for their potions. Fortunately, one of Hermione and Draco's retirement hobbies had been replacing magical ingredients with more common ones so, except for some more complex potions they wouldn't use, most medical potions could be made at home with common plants. Even though the effectiveness wasn't the same.
"I don't know what I would do without you, Hermione..." she whispered and smiled as she began to prepare dinner.
"What's left to do on the second floor?" Naruto asked, wiping his forehead with his arm.
"We still need to put up the walls for each room on the second floor and the entire bathroom."
"And furnish it."
"Exactly. Start thinking about what you want in your two rooms."
"Where are we going to put the greenhouse?" Naruto asked, stealing a piece of carrot from the plate.
"Honestly, I'd leave the greenhouse for later," she shrugged. "Whenever we want, we can add another room on the first floor."
Naruto nodded.
"Now that I think about it, we have a spare guest room. We could turn it into something."
They fell silent, pondering what they could put there. Seina planned to have a complete wall in her study with shelves for scrolls and books. A station to prepare potions with her inventory cabinet taking up another entire wall and a desk.
"We could put an armory. With all the equipment for missions and such."
"Hmm... Not a bad idea. I was thinking of having a wall in my study for weapons, but it's actually better to have everything in one place," Naruto murmured. "What's left to do on the third floor?"
"We need to add the runes in the bathroom to eliminate residues, cleaning runes, faucet runes, and lamp runes."
"Okay. I'll do that tomorrow while you finish the second floor."
"Perfect. Then we'll need to do the same on the first floor and create a pantry in the kitchen. We can remove the fridge and create a refrigerating cupboard with runes."
"There's more left than I thought."
"Not that much. I think we'll finish the whole house in 3 days."
They ate dinner in silence, tired, and went to bed.
The next day, another mind-numbing D-rank mission awaited them.
"What do we have to do?" Naruto asked, bored. "Pull weeds from all the gardens in Konoha?"
"No. Paint the walls of the new hotel in Konoha. You almost guessed it, Naruto."
Kakashi-sensei didn't even look at them. He had his face buried in his book, the one he seemed to be rereading, and walked calmly toward the mission department. Seina sighed in boredom. She knew it was a rite of passage for all genin to do these kinds of missions. They were necessary to save money, get familiar with their team, and be able to train daily with their jonin sensei without the pressure and danger of a normal mission. Still, that didn't mean she wasn't tired of having to paint, clean, and rescue animals. At least they paid much more than a civilian would.
"Why do people hire ninjas to do this kind of work?" she asked. "Anyone could paint a wall."
"Well, yes, but few people do it in a few hours. A painting job like this could take a couple of days, as well as the need to hire more than 3 people and rent ladders or other materials that ninjas don't need," Kakashi-sensei replied, turning the page. "Plus, the presence of ninjas always acts as a deterrent to potential saboteurs."
Seina raised an eyebrow, pondering what she had just heard. If the owner painted the walls himself, he wouldn't have to hire anyone, even if it took him a week to paint everything. The only thing that seemed to make sense was the deterrent aspect. She shrugged and accepted the explanation. They received the scroll with the mission details and headed towards the newly constructed hotel. Right away, she noticed that the wood on the facade needed at least one coat of varnish.
"And this place is new?" Naruto asked, with his usual tact. Seina flicked his ear. "Hey!"
"Those things are meant to be thought, not said, Naruto."
"You're such a dobe," Sasuke teased, walking into the hotel.
"But I didn't say anything wrong!"
"Guys," Kakashi-sensei called their attention, and they all fell silent.
She watched as he spoke with the owner, who seemed very happy to see them. After a brief courtesy chat, the owner explained what he wanted and handed them the materials. Since there were 3 floors, they each took one initially.
"Seina," Sasuke called before she could leave. "Let's make a deal."
Seina grinned from ear to ear upon hearing him. Sasuke had done the reports for the other 2 missions, and he still had 5 more to do as agreed. It was clear he had gotten used to letting them do the hard work while he took the free time to write the report.
"5 more," he said, and she burst out laughing realizing she was right.
"10."
Sasuke sighed. "Fine, another 7 reports."
"Yay!" Naruto cheered, preferring to do the work and skip the writing.
"One moment, guys," Kakashi chuckled. "You can't always avoid Sasuke's work by negotiating who writes the reports."
"Why not?" Naruto retorted, and Sasuke nodded with his arms crossed. "Isn't negotiating part of being a ninja?"
"Um... yes, but that's beside the point. How will Sasuke learn to paint a wall in his house in the future, for example?" Kakashi-sensei tried to reason with them. They all looked at him incredulously.
"Right, because painting a wall requires a college degree in engineering," Seina laughed, hearing Kakashi-sensei's weak argument.
"Besides, I'd hire a team of genin," Sasuke said slyly, with an arrogant smile.
Naruto and Seina laughed at Kakashi-sensei's exasperated expression. He knew why he was trying to get Sasuke to cooperate, but with D-rank missions, it was practically useless for them to waste time when they could expedite the job with clones. They gained nothing as a team if Sasuke helped paint a measly wall. Similarly, by compartmentalizing the work, they were acting as a team, coordinating and distributing tasks in the most efficient way.
"Well... I tried," the jonin said to the air and buried his face in his book again.
"I'll add the missions to your list of reports," Seina assured, ignoring her teacher, and then created a dozen clones.
They didn't take more than a couple of hours to finish painting everything. Meanwhile, Sasuke and Kakashi-sensei sat at a table to write the report and read the book, respectively. Seina couldn't help but smile all day long, noticing the harmony in her team, and thought that perhaps Kurama was right when he said she should trust them more if she wanted them to be a real team.
"I'm always right, midget," Kurama joked. She smiled again.
"Hai, hai."