Instead of cursing me, the Sannin of Konoha cocked her fist and appeared in front of me in the blink of an eye with a mere stomp of her foot. Yet, instead of her fist smashing me to the other side of the village, something she didn't think possible happened.
I caught her fist, and the two of us slid back a small distance until her momentum fully dispersed. Thankfully, she didn't use her full power. And thankfully a ridiculous yang chakra affinity together with my dimension's nature energy, copious amounts of pills, and my bloodline's many benefits resulted in my body's strength to surpass even the most meticulous taijutsu ninja - except for Might Guy who opened some of the later gates once he grew up, of course… Plus a near-death experience during the Third Ninja War made me focus on my physical defense.
"May I lift my transformation jutsu and explain myself a little before that?" I asked with a charming smile, but just like Mei, Tsunade looked at me like I was trash.
I wasn't as handsome and charming as I thought myself to be, was I?
Tsunade retracted her hand, and instead of answering once more, she surprised me with a chakra infused stomp on my foot, followed by a headbutt to the chest.
The stomp connected and immediately hurt like hell, but I was ready for the headbutt and ducked down.
'Surprise kiss with the force to level a building. Let's see how you like that!'
My face hurt despite our lips touching, so it came as no surprise when Tsunade got even angrier and got ready to start a taijutsu fight to the death with me.
But I didn't care to play by the rules, so I used the body flicker jutsu and appeared behind Shizune, who was anxiously watching from the forest entrance. A dirty move, to be sure, but I didn't mean harm to either of them on this day.
Or so I thought before starting this conversation.
"Ah!" The young kunoichi was immediately alarmed and tried to free herself, but my hand on her shoulder kept her in place.
"Fuck!!" I shouted with gritted teeth. "You broke my fucking foot!"
The pain only registered when the body flicker finished and allowed me to stand behind the Sannin's apprentice.
"Now, listen for a second before I start losing my temper in earnest," I threatened, my patience running thin, and lifted my transformation jutsu.
With another deep scowl, Tsunade regarded me as she readied herself to free her little disciple and niece of her late lover.
"You're the Red Demon of Kiri," she spat with her anger levels rising constantly.
"I am, and now listen to me! Look at my hair and tell me I am not related to your grandmother!"
Tsunade immediately faltered as her anger turned to confusion, which turned to horror for the shortest of moments, before it turned to confusion once more. But at least it got her to slightly relax her stance.
"You're an Uzumaki?"
I sighed and released Shizune who immediately ran forward to hide behind her teacher as I moved Saiken's chakra to heal my foot.
"My father was an Uzu special jōnin that Kiri stole away during the annihilation of the village. He fathered me, and to my knowledge two sisters and a brother outside of the Terumi clan before he died due to Kiri's bloody politics," I explained and for the first time ever let a non-Kiri ninja know of my lineage. It wasn't a stretch to think that smart people like Orochimaru and the Third Hokage recognized my bloodline when they saw me during the war - but they didn't widely circulate their findings if even Tsunade was surprised by the revelation.
"Why are you telling me? And why did you talk about having children with me?" Tsunade asked in clear anger as I tried to determine whether or not the slight blush on her cheeks was because of rising fury, shyness, embarrassment, or sheer humiliation. It was probably fury, but admitting that to myself wasn't in line with my hopes.
"There's not many Uzumaki left. To my knowledge, even less Senju. Uzumaki and Senju were once allies before Konoha betrayed Uzushio and plotted its destruction. Naturally, it falls to the strong to make sure the bloodline stays alive," I bullshitted with a big grin. Like any prepubescent teen from my last life who grew up watching Naruto, I had a crush on that bust. I wasn't even a tits-man, but in this life, it was power that was even more arousing to me. Tsunade had both in spades.
And more importantly, there weren't many kage-level kunoichi around for me to pursue. It wasn't like I planned to groom a bunch of toddlers around Naruto's age to be my future wives. Disgusting.
"Stop speaking about that filth, stop lying, and get to the point of why you are really here," Tsunade spat with gritted teeth as Shizune had a full-face blush and hid behind her teacher.
"I rescued two Uzumakis from Kusa, but they didn't have any sealing knowledge either, I think. Still didn't open the scroll that was stolen from them. I know that Mito-sama taught you personally. I'm here for fūinjutsu knowledge," I revealed once Tsunade pointed out the obvious.
Of course, I wasn't crass enough to think my proposal would work. I wanted it to, but I had to be realistic.
My plan was thus decided to be leading with something completely unreasonable and steering the conversation to something less ridiculous.
The plan had only one flaw. Probably more, but one was glaringly obvious.
"You're the guard of the current Mizukage, a powerful ninja and jinchūriki of an enemy village. You killed countless ninja during the war. I'm not an active ninja of Konoha anymore, but why should I train a shinobi actively fighting my village? The village my grandfather created, no less."
Well, why would she indeed?
"Piety? A whim? Guilt?" I quipped by naming three very unlikely reasons that should never work.
"Guilt?" Tsunade asked, and I noticed she was about to be amused before I said that. Another miscalculation.
"Uh, well. Did you brush over the fact that I said Konoha was complicit in Uzushio's destruction?"
"And I should just believe you? My grandmother was alive and well when it happened. She would have told me if something like that was true," Tsunade angrily argued.
"Yeah, indeed. Your grandmother was alive and well when it happened. Are you telling me your grandmother, an actual princess of Uzushiogakure, who was said to be almost as strong as her husband the God of Shinobi after he sealed the nine-tails inside her couldn't even help save a single Uzu child even if she couldn't fight off the armies of the other villages?"
"She did save Kushina!" Tsunade angrily countered.
"Yeah, right. But according to my dad's drunken rambling when he thought I was too young to understand, Kushina was already on her way to Konoha for a few weeks when the armies came knocking. The ninja villages took almost a week to obliterate the barrier seals, too. Uzu sent many messages to Konoha that week. My father said that he personally sent one of the many summoned beasts with messages," I argued, but quickly realised... I was trying to make a point I didn't believe in and that I didn't even really care about.
So I shrugged and changed the subject.
"On the topic of Kushina. 'Last of her blood'. Didn't she also die? Since you're here and not a jinchūriki, did Konoha really seal the nine-tails into a newborn Uzumaki since they no longer had any other Senjus and other Uzumakis to sacrifice? And they call us the bloody mist," I scoffed disdainfully.
"How do you know about that?" Tsunade asked and instantly got into a fighting stance again. She wasn't there personally and only learned about what happened during the Nine-Tails Incident from Jiraiya later. Still, those were pretty sensitive village secrets. Nobody could know who their jinchūriki was before he was powerful enough to defend himself.
I obviously couldn't tell her that I knew because I read it in a shonen manga in a past life, so I put on a show and used my perfect chakra control and ridiculous fire affinity to create a spectacle.
Small embers gathered in the air like fireflies and slowly started an intricate dance in the air all around us. I carefully made sure the temperature wasn't rising yet until I lifted my hand theatrically to gather the fireflies above my palm to make it form a dragon's head the size of a boulder.
All embers gathered, the dragon roared and started flying in the air all around us in intricate movements before dissipating back into embers and slowly flickering out as one.
"I'm an Uzumaki sensor shinobi with vast chakra reserves and better control over chakra than you. I learn whatever I want to learn," I boasted with a slightly puffed chest.
And I calculated poorly once more. I shouldn't have told Tsunade that my chakra control was better than hers. It was one of the things she was most proud of.
Quickly waving my hands in surrender, I argued, "The little brat is a jinchūriki same as me and half an Uzumaki, again, same as me. I don't want to see him harmed and will not report what I know to Kiri or anybody else. Nobody could harm him like your Kage and his boyfriend anyway."
Tsunade's indignation was instantly replaced with righteous fury as she demanded, "What do you mean by that?"
"How old is he again? Two or three? Obviously, nobody told him: 'Hey, the legendary Fourth Hokage was your dad', but instead, they went the opposite way. Everybody fears him as the 'demon fox' despite just barely being a toddler. Honestly, if your village wanted to keep his status as the nine-tails host a secret, Danzō really dropped the stone on his own foot with that stroke of genius. Any half-learned ninja would immediately realise that Uzumaki Naruto was the jinchūriki, and from there everybody would know he's the son of the Fourth Hokage. Keeping his lineage hidden to shield him from Yondaime's many enemies makes no sense if you name him after his wife and then call him, the little boy ostracized by orphanage staff and other civilians, a demon fox. I wouldn't be surprised if everyone already knows. Of course, Danzō likely did that to have an excuse to fold Naruto into his Root and brainwash him into the tool every village thinks we jinchūriki are. So much for the gratitude for the sacrifice of the Yondaime Hokage and his wife," I said with disdain dripping from my voice.
I always absolutely hated that plotline, not that it was Tsunade's fault. She had her own shit going on, even if her inaction was a little questionable. In the end, she was her own person with her own demons - it wasn't her responsibility to care for every maligned orphan in Konoha.
And truthfully, fearing Naruto as being the thing that was sealed inside him made sense to some degree, even if the common populace never should have found out. The nine-tails had a lot of justified anger for humanity that only Naruto could resolve in the future with his talk-no-jutsu.
But his father's giant face was literally on a mountain overlooking the village. Were all the ninjas close to Minato really so callous that they would overlook that his hero son was treated like an enemy to be shunned? There was literally nobody else with blonde hair in that color in Konoha, and Naruto had his mother's last name. A name every single adult ninja in the village should have known during that age. A name feared by many and after Uzu's destruction held by few. Kushina was an idol to many Konoha kunoichi, just like Tsunade. It made no sense that the older ninja didn't know exactly who Naruto was with all of that combined.
How was it possible that even then, these clan ninjas loyal to the Fourth Hokage collectively treated Naruto like they did? The Third Hokage's brainwashing could only do so much...
"Why are you telling me all this?" Tsunade asked after a prolonged moment of silence. Her face betrayed none of her emotions, but her fist was tightly clenched and not to give me another punch.
"I told you, I saved two Uzumaki women. Naruto is another one of us. You grew up with his mother, so do something about it. Not like I can just waltz into Konoha and say: 'Let me take care of him, we're both from the same clan', now can I? But you can. You're an Uzumaki, too," I more or less ordered.
I needed Naruto strong, after all. Plot armor or not, Naruto came too close to dying way too often and I already stopped him from being able to fight Haku during his Land of Waves escort mission.
"I... I don't want to go back," Tsunade countered in a tiny voice after another short silence.
"Then at least make Jiraiya or Hatake Kakashi pick up the slack. I know they have their own issues, but Kakashi fucking sucks. His teacher's only child and he watches in silence as villagers spit on him, a toddler who will soon get kicked out of the orphanage. The same thing that happened to Kakashi's honorable father just packaged into child-size," I spat despite saying something I should have never known even as a sensor ninja. But I let it stand and threw a 'jade bottle' at Tsunade.
I was a cultivation novel alchemist. Of course, I stored pills in jade bottles.
Well, sometimes. Jade was stupid expensive and rare if the needed size was considered.
"And give him these," I ordered and threw a storage scroll over. Inside were even more pills, mostly ration pills, so Naruto won't actively go to bed while starving even if Tsunade won't care for him.
"What are these?" Tsunade asked as she carelessly opened one bottle and took a few pills out for inspection.
She was careless, sure, but nobody could poison her anyway, she probably argued inwardly.
I likely could, but I didn't. That jade bottle had a few of my 'cultivation pills' that someone could just take in whatever order.
"The blue pill is a cleansing pill. It will help strengthen chakra pathways and clean your body from filth. Definitely take it with a river or a bathroom nearby. The red one is a talent pill. Helps increase nature transformation talent or at least the results of nature transformation training. The beige ones are food pills, but better than whatever the Akimichi can make. And, the sky-blue ones are strengthening pills that increase the effect of physical training. Naruto will need a sturdy body to house the nine-tails, and after talking to my own tailed beast, I doubt the fox will help him," I explained and I could see the wonder on Shizune's face… as well as the deep, mocking suspicion of Tsunade.
"You don't believe me," I wagered with an amused smile.
"Of course I don't," Tsunade immediately answered.
"Don't waste too many of those pills for testing. You're a capable medic nin, so figure out if that's poison or not before you fully raid the stock. I made those for an Uzumaki, not some other asshole you designate as a guinea pig," I huffed and threw over another pill bottle, this one ceramic and therefore 'terrible' for keeping the medicine smell inside. That was on purpose for this encounter.
"This smells like blood," Tsunade said with a scowl without even opening the bottle.
"It isn't made with blood, but you're right. Inside it are three pills that help strengthen your bloodline. If it works like I think it will, you might develop wood release in the best case scenario. At the very least, you will get your grandpa's sage body or a weaker version of it, I reckon," I said while raising my hand, placating her. I didn't want to trigger her hemophobia with the pills, but I could assume that she thought that was what I wanted to do.
I knew scary hidden secrets about her village. It wouldn't be too far off that I would know of her fear of blood.
"You want to tempt me with this? Is this some kind of poison you concocted just for me?" Tsunade asked with a scowl.
"There's three pills inside because I ran out of the ingredients. One is for me, one is for Naruto, one is for you. Take your time, make sure they are all the same. Your chakra should be able to tell. Then throw one over to me, and I'll take it right here, right now, to prove that it works," I explained.
This was crucial and the only reason why I didn't take the pill before.
This one particular blood-red grass only grew four times in my dimension thus far, and it was entirely random. I couldn't make more of those pills because no matter how long I waited, they didn't grow another one of the plants next to it. It was unique, in a sense. And I didn't doubt that that was by design.
In any case, it was time to see if I'd get the adamantine chains or the mind's eye from that pill and get closer to the Otsutsuki origin and gain greater power. Or, you know, maybe all it will do is make the carpet match the drapes.
And since in every novel you could take such a pill only once, I didn't mind giving one to Naruto. Like I pointed out before, the little brat was my ticket to a quiet, peaceful life in this world. He needed to be strong, ideally stronger than in the original story to give me peace of mind.
Tsunade took a long look while inspecting the pills before she decided that she had nothing to lose. All those pills were the exact same, like I said. Watching me eat one would cost her nothing, so she threw one of the three pills over.
I was thankful that she didn't just crush them all. I didn't want to be the reason Tsunade dies in this world. I did keep one on the off-chance that she would indeed crush all three to spite me… but I still didn't want to waste even one.
"Do you dare allow me to watch the changes in your body with my chakra? From what you're describing, it should do something major," Tsunade asked with a cocky grin before I could pop the pill in my mouth.
"Swear on Nawaki's grave that you won't harm me if I lose control while something changes," I countered with narrowed eyes. It was a bit underhanded, but I didn't want Tsunade to use that as an opportunity to crush my spine or something equally stupid. Saiken could instantly take over my body with a tailed beast cloak mode and slap Tsunade across the Land of Fire, but what she suggested was standing next to me while pouring chakra into my body.
Who knew if she had some kind of sealing jutsu for this kind of thing and actually managed to kill me? I was a simp, true, but I wasn't a full-on imbecile.
"I won't ask how you know to bring up his name, but never invoke it again," Tsunade spat with a deep scowl as she slowly walked over. "I swear on my honor as a Senju and my brother's name that I will not harm you… this time."
Releasing Shizune early apparently made me gain a few plus points. Plus, while I destroyed countless Konoha fortifications during the Third War, my body count was comparatively small. I could have killed droves of ninja with my various fire release kekkei genkai, but all I did was destroy two strongholds and kill a few Uchiha specifically to pop them into my plant dimension while retreating.
Ah, good times. I still wonder if that tree in my plant dimension with the buried Uchiha clansmen beneath it will ever bear some kind of special fruit. At this point in time, all it did was grow delicious apples. But cultivation novels often featured special alchemy ingredients that grew thanks to weird blood tributes from cultivators or magical/demon beasts. I tried my luck with the Sharingan ninjas out of morbid curiosity. And I wanted to get one back at Shisui, the only ninja who came close to killing me during the war since I left the frontline before Orochimaru arrived each time.
Giving Tsunade a wink, I popped the pill into my mouth after sitting down and stretching my arm out for the Sannin to grasp, who took my wrist with narrowed eyes.
I enjoyed the sheer panic and incomprehension when she realized how many times bigger my chakra reserves actually were compared to what I allowed to be felt from the outside.
The truth of the matter was, I showed chakra levels around Tsunade's vast capacity just below a tailed beast. But thanks to eating pills like candy while growing up, in addition to being a jinchūriki and an Uzumaki, I surpassed Saiken's chakra level when I was fourteen. I was a literal tailed beast already, but my growth with the pills I had at hand was slowing down now that I was no longer a growing teenager. I doubted I would ever reach ten-tails level of chakra without some major changes, but I already surpassed nine-tails level by a small bit without counting the additional chakra of my own tailed beast by Saiken's estimation. And yet, every single cell in my body brimmed with chakra. It took me a while to mask this phenomenon and it was a good thing I eventually succeeded because I looked like a lit Christmas tree the size of a skyscraper entirely dwarfing a small town in the eyes of any sensor ninja.
But I didn't mock Tsunade for underestimating me. Instead, I concentrated on the changes I felt happening in my body after swallowing the pill.
As an avid user of all things fire release, I often felt my chakra and my blood boiling, sometimes even literally. My vitality and special physique allowed for it to happen without damage to my body. All it really did was make me feel really uncomfortable in my own skin. And something very similar was happening after the pill started to get digested.
Suddenly, I had a taste of iron, or rather blood in my mouth, and felt something coming.
"Close your eyes," I told Tsunade and turned my head to the side. I created a small hole in the ground with a punch and puked 'stale blood' along with some black sludge and organ pieces into it at the same moment.
The smell was repulsive. This 'cleaning of impurity' shit from cultivation novels was really grinding my gears. The taste of the oily sludge coming out of you always lingered on your tongue for an unpleasantly long time.
I kicked the hole close with some loose dirt and told Tsunade, who actually listened to me, "Blood is gone."
She opened her eyes with a complicated expression since she hopefully heard my sincerity and realised I actually actively meant her no harm. That I knew the secret of her fear of blood and still didn't act on it.
And so, she looked into my eyes as I felt my bone marrow slowly burning away inside me as the pill replaced it with new marrow in waves.
"This pill... it actually made you spit out your old blood, and now it forces your body to create new blood with a fresh marrow? How is that even possible?" Tsunade mumbled in disbelief, as she, too, felt the changes in my body.
"Why can you walk on water with chakra? Why can any of us do what we can do with that energy?" I countered and didn't explain how truly absurd my pills actually were, especially the few truly ridiculous recipes I managed to create.
"Your liver and kidneys. They cannibalized themselves and filtered old tissue into your stomach for you to puke out, yet now... they are being fed massive amounts of your chakra and are regrowing into a healthy state. You aren't doing any of that, neither is your tailed beast," Tsunade narrated as she looked at my body with incomprehension and intensity. "I have never seen anything like this happening. Not even with my own methods…"
My body was working on overdrive as more and more of my body started to replenish itself. Sadly for me, another round of puke was making its way up, so I punched open another hole.
Tsunade, who should have known what was coming, didn't look away this time. But I didn't care because less blood and more bile and disgusting sludge came out this time. Her curiosity was increasing by the minute as my heart started pumping furiously to make up for the decreased blood volume that was slowly replenishing at a speed neither I nor she had ever seen.
I had lost enough blood to be actively called anemic, and I felt sluggish since then, but strength was coming back to me ever so slowly. It was invigorating.