CH 8: Recognition Day (Part 2)

*Wooooosshhhh

The loudest sound that i could hear, were only the wind and the silence.

I scanned the audiences but there was just no movement.

I went up to the revered seats on the stage where the Hokage, the Principal, and the clan patriarchs are, no one moved to stop me. I went up to the Hokage and began waving my hand at his face...

He was just frozen, unattended, like someone under a hypnosis. Despite the fact that i am no longer on the podium, he was still looking towards that direction like i'm still there. And his eyes, they weren't drying up from the lack of blinking, combined with his expression still stuck at the shocked gasp expression. I also looked towards the other honorables but none of them acknowledged my existence.

The people at the audiences fared no better, they were all stuck at their respective actions before it all stopped. Some were frozen as they clasped both their hands because they clapped, some even have their mouths gaping from their yelling as a form of applause. I looked at my Nii-san at the front, he was also frozen but with his troubled expression as he looked towards the mannequin-like arguing of the mother and daughter in front of him. Souma and his father weren't also spared, Souma was frozen as he touches his medal, and funnily, Shintori was also stuck, but with his brooding expression as he looked towards the sitting Hokage to my right.

*Gulps*

I was baffled by this mystical scenario, none of the explanations that i've thought up in the past five minutes after this happened were all adding up.

"It seems that you maybe are wondering why everyone froze up..."

An echoing voice appeared out of nowhere, making me jump from my position several meters back.

I nervously searched around the area for the source of the voice but nothing came of such.

"Silly you, I am not in there right now, I am inside your head..."

The male sounding echoing voice ridiculed within my head.

"O-oh, so..... who might you be good sir? or ma'am, I am sorry as I can't identify"

I responded with a shivering voice.

"You see here my child, I am.....hmm...How should I explain..."

The voice pondered deeply.

I was dumbfounded by such an act, a person I don't even see nor know of acting so uncaringly in such a situation.

But after a while the voice finally spoke.

"I guess you could call me Horin, a voice that will from now on guide you"

The voice introduced himself as Horin.

"Oh hello sir Horin.."

I greeted him until I opened my mouth again.

"But sir....Guide me? How come? and why just now? why not earlier? and how did you even stop the time?"

I spouted my curious questions one after another.

"You see here mortal, I am a spirit that guides everyone from your clan, basically I am a nearly infinite source of knowledge created by the founder of your clan, but there is a handicap, I will only show my presence once I deem a clan member as someone responsible. And also I would only give out information if I deem it helpful to you. And about the timestop part, I guess you could say that I just stopped your consciousness for a while and stretched your sense of time, basically everyone outside would just think that you daydreamed for a second, while you would feel that hours have passed already. Don't worry you would just feel a medium headache, though, as long as we don't stay here long enough"

Horin explained.

His words made me ponder a little bit.

"Wow, you are quite powerful aren't you? to be able to interfere even with my mind like that? but I guess you did so for us to have a meaningful talk here, and I also have many questions for you so I will let you do so sir Horin..."

"But my clan? I had a clan?"

I asked with an imaginary big question mark floating beside my head.

The voice giggled at my response.

"Oh yes you do, but I guess the clan itself is no longer here, while it's remaining descendants are spread out in the world"

"It's name was Namikaze, like the surname you have now, but information about its disappearance and even the clan itself became sealed from the public, meaning, barely anyone knows about the clan existing, except for some higher-ups who were involved with their disappearance"

Horin further explained.

"Wait, so how were they destroyed? who destroyed them?"

At my question, he didn't respond at all, hinting that I am not allowed to know that as of now.

"I guess that is it for now, though, I am really glad that me and my brother actually descended from a noble clan, that really gave me the motivation to become someone in this world, giving me a reason to rebuilt my clan back up"

I told Horin enthusiastically, hoping that he softens down to reveal some more information about me later.

"That is a wonderful dream"

He responded with a gentle voice.

"Wait one more question..."

"How come big brother doesn't seem to know about you? I thought that every clan member gets to talk to you if they are responsible enough? I would say that brother is very responsible though"

I asked with curiosity and confusion.

"That is simple, your brother's blood is just not as pure as you do"

"You see here little Kaito, only some people in your clan with a high enough concentration of the founders' chakra could be given the ability to hear and talk with me, in a sense, I am basically your clan's unique Bloodline Limit"

Horin explained.

"A Bloodline Limit huh? Is it the same as those Hyuga's and Uchiha's eyes?"

I asked to confirm my guess.

"But then again, he is my brother, isn't he supposed to have the same concentration as me? I mean that is if he isn't"

I asked once again.

"Silly Kaito, Yes he is definitely your brother, but it is just that your father is from another branch of bloodline that might've dominated your brother's genes more than you did, while your mother was a pure blooded Namikaze"

Horin answered.

"From another set of bloodline, I guess that is why father was always treated like an outsider by the people around us..."

I responded with a gloomy realization.

"But wait, so mom did have access to you.."

"Yes she did have"

Horin confirmed my speculation.

"So what was she like? I mean I am pretty sure I have the rights and qualifications to know about her"

I asked with a genuine curiosity.

"Hahhh, I guess you do have the right, so she was an energetic woman------"

And just like that, my conversation with my clan's spirit went on for a while as he narrates to me about how my mom was while time was still frozen all around us. I could careless though

He told me that mom was an energetic woman that gave her the nickname as the "Steeled Gold" by the village. Apparently she was very tomboyish and most often gave my grandfather a headache from her gangfights with other clan children back in her teenage years, I was told that back when she was a child just like me, there was no academy so to speak of, and so the only things she did was to fight, play, eat, sleep, fight, play, eat and then sleep.

As a lady of a non-shinobi family, she wasn't trained as a shinobi, and she didn't desired to be one, that was until she found out the news about her father's suspicious death in the 1st Shinobi War battlefield in the Kirigakure front.

For the public, it was shown that he died as a warrior shinobi who protected his comrades, but for her, she didn't believed that, because she believed that grandfather was never such a person who would risk his chances of being able to see his daughter again behind saving his comrades, he was never such a heroic person in her eyes, she also could not believe that her father who learned various agility techniques that gave him the title as the 'Yellowflash of Konoha' would fail to escape such a wide battlefield with barely any known kage-level enemy. And that was why she solely believed that the higher-ups and even Tobirama the Hokage of the time himself had something to do with his death.

And in order to prove her suspicions, she trained to be a Kunoichi and achieved it. During her prime, she became renowned as the greatest Kunoichi because of her terrifying Genjutsu and Iryojutsu prowess. He even revealed that the Senju Princess Tsunade became inspired by his mother and that is why she was so powerful right now, though i wondered on how Horin got that information.

He further narrated that she met my Father during one of her missions in the Land of Waves when she was staying in Uzushiogakure, father's hometown where his clan reigned supreme as the ruling clan of the village. They both fell in love at first sight and decided to get married there, they both then asked his parents and even the Uzukage for my father to be allowed to live with my mother here in Konoha as per their decision as a newly-wed couple. They were allowed to do so with both the permission and blessings of the Uzukage and even the Hokage.

They then settled themselves here in Konoha as a family, though my mother still continued her mission to find out about grandfather's death. She then gave birth to big brother and that is when she started finding out about the higher-ups' connection to grandfather's death, 4 years later, she gave birth to me but at the cost of her life, though one thing Horin told me was that she was smiling as a mother during her last breaths in my birth bed.

After an hour of narration, I asked Horin to finally dispel his timestop as I wanted to go back to reality now. I also gratified him for telling me about my late mother, because I truly felt relieved that mother wasn't sad even as she was struggling to push me out.

After I snapped out of the timestop, I was still standing at the podium along with the cheers and applause of the audiences in front of me,but this time with a pretty bad headache. I then went back down and sat on my seat and proceeded to the end of the program.

The program ended and me and my brother bid our farewells and congratulations to both Hae and Souma and their parents as we went back to our house. Both of us spent our dinner with his great cooking that I barely experienced in the past due to his busy schedules, and that was why he specifically prepared for this day and cooked me my favorite food, Tempura and meat soup.