Chapter Twenty-Two

A/N- Hey guys. So this one is coming a bit late. Good news is that real life stuff got in the way in the best of ways. I graduated from Uni at the beginning of this week. This means I have a lot more time to dedicate to my writing, so I hope that translates to an uptick in quality. There's so much shit I want to explore and have fun with and now I get to do that. As for this story, expect the next update on Wednesday next week and know you could skip the wait and rea the next three chapters as well as continuous updates on Pa-treon right now. Since I now qualify as an unemployed member of society, all subscribers on my pa-treon are much appreciated. If you enjoy my writing, then please don't hesitate to support it if you can. For Pa Treon, you can remove the hyphen between Pa and Treon and Google it, then search for my username—Oghenevwogaga. Or you could copy the link in my bio and remove the spaces before pasting it in your address bar. Note: Please subscribe to my pa-treon using the website directly instead of using the IOS app. It's cheaper on the website.

I'd thought about it. Contemplated and thought about it for a while now. Years even, if one added the time spent in my coma. A summoning creature. I knew that if I begged Tsunade, she'd let me join her contract with Katsuyu and get all the benefits of being a slug summoner, and I knew I had enough leverage over Jiraiya, emotional or otherwise, to get him to make me a toad summoner, but neither of those creatures would be mine. Not truly. Orochimaru, Tsunade, and Jiraiya were so strong with their summons because those were the animals best suited to them. And that was why I was going to be taking this risk. A lesser known effect of the summoning jutsu was that using it without a contract and with enough chakra, would only succeed in reverse summoning the would-be summoner to the creatures most suited to them. 

Why didn't everyone go around doing this? It was dangerous as all hell. First of all, there was the possibility that the creatures would not want to work for the summoner at all, and then they'd just kill the summoner and be done with it. Secondly, what happened if the creatures were already allied to another village? I doubted there would be anything positive happening to an Iwa Shinobi who somehow managed to summon himself to the realm of Enma, the Monkey King. Thirdly, what happened if I summoned myself to the realm of creatures that weren't native to the same environment as I was. Considering how much I loved freedom, I wouldn't be surprised if my creatures were birds of some sort, so I'd prepared myself for that. I was even wearing a makeshift flight suit that I'd had made outside the clan because now I was banned from doing any sort of experimentation and everyone in the clan had been told to report me if I ever seemed to be doing something suspicious. Damn Tsunade and her Sensei for reporting me to Grandma Mito. Tobirama wouldn't have cared. He actually found the compound fascinating and wanted to see what we could make using his own blood instead of mine, but we couldn't move forward until the damn ban was over. 

If I were a more honest man, I would admit that the ban on experimentation with both fuinjutsu and medical ninjutsu had led me here. I was, for lack of a better word, bored. And this was sure to be entertaining one way or another. Sure that I had all my tools on me and that my flight suit was ready to go, I bit down on my left thumb with more force than my brain wanted to allow. The blood flowed, and flowed freely. Boar → Dog → Bird → Monkey → Ram, I mentally intoned while activating my doujutsu at the same time and slammed my right palm into the ground. All I saw was smoke for a second, and my hopes of getting a sneak peek at the realm between worlds was dashed as I instantly found myself at my destination. At my destination and swallowing water quickly as I'd failed to hold my breath in preparation. Fuck. 

**"Is this one supposed to be a summoner? What a fool. Boy, return when you are ready to breathe in our home,"**the giant fucking whale said before nodded at me, and in a second I found myself on the floor, struggling to throw up the water that had rushed into my lungs. 

"That was very stupid," I agreed with myself instinctively until I realised I wasn't the one that spoke and that I was staring into a pair of flashing red eyes. I shut mine instantly, never forgetting the lesson Izuku had taught me in our fight from so long ago. 

"So what animal was it. Something aquatic, I'm guessing" He said, clearly fishing for information. 

"Salmon" I replied with no hesitation. 

He stopped, and I snapped my eyes open but kept them aimed below his red orbs and enjoyed the look of shock on his face. 

"You're lying" 

"Of course I am, Kagami-san. Is there anything you're going to do about it?" I asked, knowing that the only reason I was running my mouth like this against an Uchiha jounin in a virtually abandoned training ground was because of who precisely this Jounin was. Kagami had been one of Granduncle Tobirama's students, and one of those that my Granduncle had enough of a healthy relationship to host for dinner once every while. Those dinners had allowed me to meet Danzo as well as Hiruzen before I truly started the relationship where I spent time training with his team. 

Perhaps it was the impression I'd left after the dinners and not my stellar performances against jounin many years my senior that made Hiruzen take such a shining to me. I laughed off the thought instantly. As evidenced by Kagami here, I was not one of the most personable people out there.

"So what animal is it? You know your granduncles is opposed to using that technique to discover summoning creatures and bind them as partners." 

"Any reason why? " 

"The inherent dangers. And also the potential of just getting stuck between realms if you mess the technique up enough. One of your Granduncle's uncles died to that kind of mess so it's a bit of a sore spot for him, but I am sure you'll figure out how to navigate that. So what animal is it?" 

"Whales" I finally said, leaning heavily on my fire release skill to warm my body. In the end, I overshot it by quite a bit and felt a few beads of sweat begin to build up on his foreheads. Kagami seemed to take pity on him and formed a Half ram seal. I felt the winds around us pick up for a second, and it was like I had been cocooned in a strong breeze. 

When it was gone, I was completely dry from head to toe. 

XXXXXX

The conversation with Tobirama had not gone the way Kagami might have been expected. Sure, he was pissed at the danger I'd put myself in, but it was not like I wasn't already serving some form of punishment. I only really had two hobbies - hosting my dinners and training. The dinners were literally the only reason I hadn't been lynched out of the village yet. Okay, that was an exaggeration, but it was not an exaggeration that hosting the relatives of the most powerful clan heads at my house to eat food mostly made by me was one hell of a way to at least keep some of the public opinion on my side. Tobirama saw it as me cementing my place as the leader of the next generation, so there was no way he was messing with that. I'd even begun to suspect that he had the anbu paying closer attention to the dinners these days than they usually did, but that as not something that could be proven or even needed to be worried about. 

One advantage of being born in this era was that I had no fears of Danzo doing Danzo shit. Tobirama was still around to cut him off at the knees if he ever tried anything stupid so we were all safe from that hot mess. The other thing I did was train, and banning me from that would be braindead. 

Besides, his anger had only lasted long enough for me to explain that I had succeeded, and then to explain what it was that I had actually seen. Whales. When I used the word whales, I did not mean the kind that I had seen in an aquarium in my first life, or even on the internet. I used it in the sense of what Megalodon was to the sharks of my world. Only seeing them for a few seconds had done well to drive in that impression. With my byakugan active, I could see about 1 kilometre in all directions, and all I'd been able to see beyond the back part of another whale, was the whale in front of me. That should give some idea as to the scale I was speaking about. Those things were absolutely massive, and then there was their chakra. I thought Tobirama had a lot of chakra. He was like a thimble in the ocean when compared to those guys. 

With their size and chakra capacities, Tobirama was doubtful that I'd ever be able to actually summon them, but he was curious as to the kind of water release that creatures like those would be capable of. The way his eyes lit up with boundless curiosity as he wondered how they managed to move. Surely, it was water manipulation at a scale hitherto unimaginable, he'd opined with wide eyes at the thought. I agreed with him as well, but I also had another reason I needed them. Nature chakra. I could see the way their bodies took it in constantly and balanced it with their chakra cores. Sages. The two whales I'd seen had been sages. That was enough for me. Sage mode was within my grasp now. I just had to somehow figure out how top breath underwater. 

I wonder if this qualifies as enough of an extenuating situation for Mito to put a pause on my fuinjutsu ban. Heck. Who was I kidding? Telling her I'd chosen to mess around with space-time summoning techniques instead of thinking about the consequences of my actions was practically guaranteed to get me another month added to my ban.

Fuinjutsu a bust, the next logical coin was Ninjutsu. Wind or water. That was the basic question. I had the basic idea I could use something like the bubble head charm from Harry Potter to maintain a bubble of water above my head that was hollow from within where I could breathe through, but the only problem with that was that I'd suffocate in virtually no time. Five minutes at the most from breathing the same air over and over again. I could also experiment with holding my breath for longer and longer periods, so I could spend even longer, but something told me the whales were not the sort to tolerate half-baked measures. They had asked me to breathe and that was what I was going to do. 

I floated for a few seconds in the water before steeling my will and diving inside once again. The goal here was to use what I knew about medical ninjutsu to let me breathe a bit. I felt water against the pores of my skin, and focusing, I tried to split the water itself into the elements that made up the compound. Two parts Hydrogen as against one part Oxygen per atom. I just needed to take out that single atom of oxygen and pump it into my body. Once again, it failed to work. A remained under the water until I felt myself unable to hold my breath for any longer and swam back to the top, gasping for air and breathing in large lungfuls. All the while, I hated myself for every second of it. Failure was a bitch. 

"What are you doing in there?" I heard a sudden voice ring out. 

Activating my byakugan, I wasn't surprised to make out Izuku walking into the gated pond area that the Senju clan treasured. It wasn't nearly as grand as the Naka river, but it still was one hell of a water body. Crystal clear, clean, cool in the hot months and hot in the old months. It was our very own gift from the Sage of Six Paths, Grandmother Mito would say with a smirk every once in a while. 

"We have training now. You promised to help me get my sharingan to the last tomoe," he said, and I nodded while rocketing out of the pond and drying myself with a quick application of wind release chakra that I definitely hadn't stolen from Kagami Uchiha. It was the story I was going to be using if anyone actually cared enough to make a fuss about it. I doubted they will. 

"Sure. Let's get to it. I need to get my mind of off this thing in the first place." I smoothly consented and shot out of the pool. 

XXXX

I leaned out of the way of the kick and stepped further into his guard. His attempt to gain distance failed as I blocked an instinctive liver shot and retaliated with two quick punches to his head. He stepped back with each punch, trying to let the force move him to bleed out some of the momentum, but that was a last ditch effort as best, and I snapped a sidekick into his rib cage that sent him flying in that direction. He managed to land among the trees and I smiled at the fact that he wasn't down yet. Izuku was the only one my age that I found the time to spar with on a regular basis, and that also made him the greatest victim of the time I spent with the Sannin and their Sensei. Training with them for only a few months was like a booster shot in all respects. 

I hadn't really learned any new techniques but the ones I did know worked so much better, and I was so much better at using them at the right times now. Izuku had taken advantage of the distance to weave the seals for a great fireball and where before I would have given into the temptation to fight fire with fire, now I just shuddered at how wasteful that would have been and the feeling of Enma slapping me upside the head when I tried foolish shit like that whenever he showed up randomly to watch the sparring matches. Now, I formed a single ram seal and spat out two thin lances of water that shot through the fireball and made their way to Izuku's position. View obstructed by his own technique, Izuku never saw the lances coming until it was almost too late for him to dodge. 

He panicked, body flickered, and ate a flying knee to the face for his efforts. I resisted the urge to chuckle as he rolled across the ground from the force of his hit. Even the regular byakugan could track something like the body Flicker in real time so pulling that particular jutsu out against me was idiotic. Of course, that was ignoring the fact that the action had been reflexive, and he'd had not much of a choice in trying to get out of the way. 

"Okay. I give." He said when he finally came to a stop against the trunk of a tree. I wasted no time in running towards him with glowing green eyes. Looking at the path he'd taken made me wince as I saw a few notable spots of white. I'd knocked more than one tooth out at the very least. 

"So sorry, man. I think I put in too much force in that one" I said as I began healing. He just grunted in reply, clearly overwhelmed by the feeling of the medical chakra on his swollen mouth. 

"Next time, no body flickers please" I told him, and he nodded with a chuckle. 

"Did we do it at least?" I asked, and whatever good humour he felt was drained as he shook his head. He looked right into my eyes, and in a display of trust, I met them unblinkingly. Three tomoe in his left eye, but still two in his right. Fuck. 

XXXXX- FOUR MONTHS LATER

"I don't think we need her" I instantly refuted Izuku's idea before he'd even finished bringing it up. 

"Well, I think we do. The two of us have been working with each other for months now, and I still haven't managed to get anything done other than getting my ass kissed day in and day out". 

"Not months. Between your missions, it's more like only a few sessions of time we've gotten together. I think we can still achieve this if we keep working together and don't give up. I can feel it." 

"I wonder how you can feel anything other than the feeling of my teeth cracking against your fist since the eyes in question are mine and not yours" I chuckled at the point and shrugged. 

"I don't like the way she gets sometimes, and you know that with an issue like this she's going to be at her very worst self" I told him, not feeling good about criticising my teammate even if the words were true. I just wanted to protect my best friend, and in a matter like this, he did need protecting. 

"I grew up with her, Shori. She's smug and can be mean at times, but she's not cruel. You know this as well". 

"Then why didn't you go to her in the first place?" I said, ashamed to see the way part of me relished in him rearing backwards from my words. Point to me. 

"You're right, okay. I didn't go to her because she would have been mean and smug about it and would not even have been much help" He conceded, and I nodded, making a token attempt to not have the smile that erupted at my face seem too smug. 

"Buttttt things have changed now." he said. 

"What things have changed?"

"You. We've been trying to get it done together for more or less four months now. The second I tell her that, she's going to relish the chance to achieve something that neither of us could" He said, stealing the wind from my sails almost instantly. 

"Well played" I said after a few seconds of silence. If the words had seemed reluctant, then it was purely because I hadn't thought Izuku as capable of playing the two of us against each other so effectively. In hindsight, that was perhaps a shortsighted view of things. 

"So when are we going to see her?"

"Already did. She should already be on her way" He said, bursting into laughter when I felt my left eye begin to twitch against my will.

"So what have you clowns tried?" She asked upon arrival, not even attempting pleasantries. I just sighed, more than used to it, while Izuku smiled instead. Of course, he still felt smug at the success of his manipulations. 

"Progressive overload, just me beating his arse six ways to Sunday and past that, genjutsu, traps, capture and even simulated interrogation" I said, listing out the long list of failed experiments we'd made.

"Well, I can see why you both needed me here. He needs to strive against an opponent close to his strength level but not far above" She said. 

"So I'm too strong to spar against him" I said, placing my chin on my hand and nodding faux-sagely 

"I doubt that" She replied. "Izuku is just about my level even with one less tomoe in his eyes, so the problem would be you not being strong enough to place him in the right amount of stress to trigger evolution in his eyes than anything else." She said, stroking her chin with her hands and not noticing the raised eyebrow I sent my best friend's way which he replied with a muffled chuckle and a shake of his head. 

So he hadn't told her then. Makes sense. There was no chance that Uzume would believe that I was stronger than her after spending so much time on the 'sidelines' so he just sidestepped the issue by never bothering to correct her admissions about where I stood in terms of strength. I mean it was probably a compliment that she was willing to believe that I'd managed to keep up with their pace of development, if anything at all. 

"Okay, so how did you activate yours?" I poked. 

"Toshiro and I were left to fight a Jounin alone by Sensei. He was stronger than the both of us but working together was enough to get it done." 

"So it takes two then" I said. 

"Not necessarily" She instantly refuted. "Just the sensation of a challenge being relatively close to your ability to beat but not so far above that you lose every shred of hope of ever being able to snatch victory. It needs to be hard, not impossible" She clarified, making him nod. 

"Alright then." I said, beginning to stretch. 

"Both of you come at me with the intent to kill. Maybe if you're lucky you'll make me use more than one hand" And then, just to piss Uzume off even more, I made a show of placing my right hand behind my back. 

"What the hell are you talking about?" She began, but Izuku had already begun running at me once I'd made the concession. 

I smiled at the both of them and took a deep breath in before sending the both of them flying in hurricane class winds. 

"Come, come, Uchiha. Show me the worth of the name" I forced my voice to carry with the winds themselves. 

A/N; A place to stop. As I said earlier, the next chapter comes up next week wednesday or skip the wait and read the next three along with daily uploads on pa-treon. For the pa-treon, you can remove the hyphen between pa and treon and google it then search for my username- Oghenevwogaga. Or you could copy the link in my bio and remove the spaces before pasting in your address bar.